SKETCHES OF NORTHERN VILLAGE LIFE AND 
CHARACTER. 



VILLAGE PHOTOGRAPHS. 

By AUGUSTA LARNED. 



12ino. $1.75. Sent Post-Paid on Receipt of Price. 

The Churchman says : — " They go beyond even the most accurate sun- 
pictures in the vividness and delicacy of their coloring. Each character is a 
portrait ; each scene is a piece of g-enre painting. Each is a prose idyll, 
worthy to take its place beside any thing of the sort that has been written. 
Full of pathos, full of quiet humor, a ]Sew England village and its inhabitants 
in all their mingled simplicity, )iaivete ^nd 'cuteness are depicted with the 
most loving tenderness and stand out from the canvas in their sterling native 
worth and beauty." 

The Nation says: — " This particular village is of the rural New England 
type. Its inhabitants have a familiar look as they come before us in turn. 
There are the judge, the jack-of-all-trades, the young man of genius without 
an occupation, the ne'er-do-well, and the good doctor, who belongs to the 
group in which Holmes delights, and who is drawn with a skill not inferior to 
his own. There are women of all varieties of weakness and strength of mind; 
schoolmistresses, old maids, flirts, widows, in an abundance that accurately 
indicates, one thinks, the surplus of the sex. ... A good many life- 
histories are related, not as the novelist writes them, but in the way in which 
they are really known to the people of the town." 

The Boston Transcript says : — " Remarkably well done and deserves far 
more praise than would a hasty commonplace romance. A book of this kind 
shows us how much material for novels there is hidden away under the shady 
elms which shadow our quiet village streets." 

The Independent, N. Y. says: — •' They abound in quiet pictures, such 
as one meets in ' Cranford,' with plenty of humor, occasionally rising into 
art, and in a strong home flavor and American coloring which is the proof of 
the artist, and the charm of her work." 

'J'he Christian Union says: — "The focus is chosen with such judgment 
and the ' finishing ' done with such care and taste that the portraits are 
artistic, not crude or faulty in perspective. The papers — to drop the compari- 
son suggested by the title — well deserve the popularity they have gained. ' 

The Boston Advertiser says: — "Until the present time we have had 
nothing in American literature that could fairlj' be called a counterpart of 
' Our Village.' Since Miss Augusta Earned has written ' Village Photo- 
graps * this can, however, no longer be asserted. With a discernment 
eciual to that of the historian of Three Mile Cross, a humor as sparkling and 
vivacious, albeit of a somewhat different flavor, and with an even keener 
poetic sense, Miss Earned has in these photographs most admirably portrayed 
the various phases of life in an American village of to-day. . . . Never 
unsympathetic, and it is this fact that gives these sketches of hers one of their 
greatest charms. . . . As a whole, * Village Photographs ' is a noteworthy 
contribution to the literature of rural life." 

The Philadelphia Bulletin says : — " The contemplative reader, who 
cares not for the high wrought cheap novels, can find no new book for summer 
reading better than this beautifully written collection of ' Village Photographs.' " 

The N. Y. Tribune says: — "Pleasant reading; the character pictures 
are distinct and sometimes striking • the dialogue is natural ; the humor is 
-entle and unforced, and the style is easy and agreeable. . . . She has a 
een eye, and she describes village life, if not exactly as she sees it, then with 
an air of realism which is a triumph of fancy." 

HENRY HOLT & CO., Publishers, N. Y. 



I 



SOUTHERN SILHOUETTES 



BY 



JEANNETTE H. WALWORTH 



ifl 





NEW YORK 
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

1887 



Fa. 10 



1/ 



Copyright, 1887. 

BY 

HENRY HOLT & CO. 



Press W. L. Mershon & Co., 
Rahway, N. J. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



Perhaps as the old order of things in the South is 
rapidly passing into the realms of legend and tradition, 
the time has come when one who was part and parcel 
of that old order can appropriately put on record the 
story of a day that is dead. 

The sketches here compiled in book form after 
running their course in the New York Evening Post, 
are not the work of imagination, but are accurate out- 
lines of actual entities, written with the loving desire 
to do away with some of the misconceptions that have 
militated against a true appreciation of what is noblest 
and best in the people of whom they treat. 

To those who demand plot and catastrophe for 
mental aliment this book is offered with an apology. 
To those who are avid of the truth, whatever guise it 
assumes, it is offered with confidence. 

If it serves but to shed the illumination of a taper 
upon one obscured spot ; if it but rescues the memory 
of one beautiful life from unmerited oblivion, it will 
not have been written in vain. 

The Author. 



CONTENTS. 



7^r 



CHAPTER. PAGE. 

I. The Colonel, ...... i 

II. Unreconstructed, .... 15 

III. Captain Tom, . . . , . .29 

IV. Ol' Miss, ...... 42 

V. Poor Miss Mollie, . . . . .56 

The Mayo Boys, ..... 69 

VII. Uncle Lige, ...... 81 

VIII. Mrs. New and the Old Families, . . 94 

IX. Why a New Doctor Went the Rounds, . 105 

X. Jim Bailey's Folks, .... 119 

XI. Mammy, ....... 133 

XII. A Breezy Optimist, . . . .147 

XIII. Lee's Wife, 160 

XIV. 'Mely Jane's Wedding, .... 175 
XV. Charley Knight's Strategy, . . . 191 

XVI, Colonel Sutton's Governess, . . . 208 

XVII. Cap Sutton's Chance, ..... 223 

XVIII. Miss Fanny and the Gin Burners, . . 237 

XIX. Davenport's, ...... 254 

XX. The Boy and the Bayou, . . . 268 

XXI. A Bone of Contention, .... 284 

XXII. "Old Harvey," .... .298 

XXIII. Tony's White Angel, .... 314 

XXIV. Miss Flo's Harvest, . . . . * 330 
XXV. An Old Roman, . . . . .348 

XXVI. Blind Jo and the New People, . . 366 



SOUTHERN SILHOUETTES. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE COLONEL. 



HE was a sort of potentate in his way before the 
war. He has been a sort of Oracle in his way 
since. Not that either eminence was of his own seek- 
ing, nor that he ever shows any offensive conscious- 
ness of his own exaltation above neighboring and 
younger planters. His position has been the gradual 
outcome of circumstances, and he accepts it as he 
does his gray hairs and his rheumatic leg, simply as 
something that the years have brought him unsolicited. 
His grandfather " opened up " the first plantation in 
the county, the very same that he still cultivates, and 
the family name is perpetuated in Sims's Bayou, Sims's 
Landing, Sims's Lake, and Sims's Ferry. It is a 
comfortable reflection to the Colonel that the name 
will not be buried with him when they lay him away 
in one of the brick-oven affairs that have from time 
to time been erected in that corner of the flower-garden 
known as the family burying-ground, where several 
generations of Simses sleep peacefully under the jes- 
samine and japonica bushes. He has never quite gotten 
used to regarding himself as the last of the Simses, 



2 THE COLONEL. 

for there had been Fred and Albert, who, in the course 
of nature, should have taken his place at the helm 
when death relieved him from duty; but one of his boys 
fell at Manassas and the other at Shiloh, and the 
Colonel has not even the satisfaction of knowing that 
they are lying out there in the garden under the star 
jessamines, waiting for him. Not that he wastes much 
time in fruitless retrospection. He is too well- 
balanced for that, and was never gne of those unwise 
mortals who petulantly refuse to accept the compen- 
sations time invariably offers us as a salve for our 
many sores and bruises. 

The Colonel came straight to the plantation from 
the classic atmosphere of Harvard. He was grad- 
uated there with high honors in the class of '35. 
During the time of his college life, if any soaring 
ambitions or lofty intentions intruded themselves into 
the plan of his future, he wisely laid them all aside 
with his Greek and Latin grammars when he settled 
into the groove to which he had been predestined 
from birth. If it ever occurred to him that a classic 
collegiate course was incongruous with the practical 
duties awaiting him, no one was made the recipient of 
the reflection, and he ran his course as industriously 
as if a professorship was the ultimate destiny await- 
ing him. The practical duties that faced him, when 
he passed from heirship into actual possession of the 
" old Sims place " were responsible but not onerous, 
and, looking back, he believed he could fairly claim 
to have performed them to the best of his ability. He 
had always made humanity and a sense of justice prime 
essentials in his selection of an overseer, and, paying 



THE COLONEL. 3 

liberal salaries, secured the very best. Having 
installed an efficient prime minister at the head of 
affairs, his sense of personal responsibility was 
reduced to a minimum. If the Colonel had been 
light-minded, he might have given his young man- 
hood up to those allurements that appeal so strongly 
to the rich and leisurely class. But he never had 
been light-minded, and quietly shelving his literary 
and classic proclivities, he applied himself industriously 
to the task of making his plantation the " brag place " 
of the county. 

He promptly recognized two absolute needs in the* 
furtherance of this object — a good wife and a better 
gin-house. A bachelor establishment on the plan- 
tation would just fall short of the disreputable, and 
the old horse-power gin of his father's reign must 
give place to a steam gin. The selection of a wife 
and the building of a new gin were occupations 
enough for any one year in an average man's life. 
The Colonel accomplished both to his own entire 
satisfaction and the envy of his neighbors. It was a 
matter of pride with him that the smoke-stack of his 
gin should be at least two feet higher than any other 
gin stack in the county. He revised, and supervised, 
and pondered the architectural plans for the structure 
with absorbing interest, taking care to locate it so 
that whether he was lolling in the big Spanish-leather 
chair that formed part of the front gallery furniture 
year in and year out, or swinging in the Mexican 
hammock out under the mulberry tree, or indus- 
triously overseeing the reconstruction of his asparagus 
bed, it should always be visible ; and when the 



4 THE COLONEL. 

Stately, sky-piercing shaft stood complete, the Colonel 
felt that another monument had been reared to the 
name of Sims, and complacently regarded it as an 
exponent of his own good taste and progressive views. 
Not that he was Colonel Sims in those days. He was 
plain Benny Sims when he married his wife and built 
his gin. His title was simply another one of those 
accretions that came with the years and had no 
especial reference to deeds of valor performed by him 
at any juncture of his existence. It fitted him well, 
though, and he became it admirably, for the Colonel 
was tall and erect and his bearing was marked with a 
certain rigid punctilio that might well have been 
acquired in a military camp. No one ever heard the 
Colonel enter any demurrer against being brevetted 
Colonel beyond a mild '' Pish ! " or two, which were 
nullified by his prompt acceptance of the honor. 

As the years go on the Colonel exhibits increasing 
inclination to draw sharp contrasts between the new 
and the old order of things, and in his capacity of 
general adviser to the younger planters about him 
never fails to make honorable mention of his own life- 
long habit of doing every thing systematically. 

" You may think, boys " (the Colonel is spokes- 
man), " that life was all a frolic on the plantation 
before the war, because we owned the hands and 
could work 'em to please ourselves. There's where 
you're out. There used to be lines of work on the 
place that you don't know any thing about, and hard 
lines at that. In those days you'd begin working in 
January, with no prospect of a let-up until Christmas 
came to give you a breathing-spell." Then, not with- 



THE COLONEL. 5 

out pardonable gusto, the Colonel would indulge in a 
little game of comparison with his auditors, in which 
the past of his own active days always came out 
winner. " January meant hard work on the plantation 
in those days. It meant log-rolling and brush-burn- 
ing and fence-mending and rail-splitting and road- 
patching. When a dead tree fell down in a field in 
those days, niggers didn't plow 'round it year 
after year until it had time to rot out of sight. No, 
sirs, log-rolling meant piling up every stump and 
fallen log and dead limb and making bonfires of *em. 
And last year's cotton stalks and corn-stubble weren't 
knocked down and plowed under, in the slap-dash 
fashion of to-day — no, sirs ; they were raked up, and 
piled up, and set fire to, and a thousand-acre field, 
with a blazing bonfire about every ten feet or so, and 
young darkies feeding the fires like so many sprightly 
little devils imported for the occasion, wasn't a bad 
sight of a dark night. It was fun all round. And 
December ! What does December mean to you boys ? 
It means a lot of sulky freedmen sitting around in 
their cabins cussing you and the store-keepers and 
the commission merchants for their penniless con- 
dition, while they keep their heels warm with your 
fence-rails. It used to mean hog-killing time, and by 
the time eighty or a hundred fat hogs were hanging 
up in my smoke-house frozen stiff, the whole quarter 
lot was reveling in crackling bread, and backbones, 
and chitlings." 

The Colonel never fails to bring his audience back 
to the present, with the pathetic admission that, 
*' what was to be was to be, and he supposes it is all 



6 THE COLONEL. 

for the best." His ambitions since the war are few 
and meager. Before the war they were many and 
laudable, never soaring into the realms of the 
unattainable. It was a point of honor with him that 
his " team " should go through the entire hauling 
season without breaking down. This is no idle boast 
with the planter. Mammoth cotton bales, weighing 
each 500 or 600 pounds, are to be hauled, piled top- 
pling high on strong wagon bodies, to the shipping 
point, miles away, over roads that become almost 
impassable during the winter season ; and the eight 
mules that are selected for this responsible under- 
taking are pampered and coddled months beforehand. 
The Colonel will recall for you now the name and 
pedigree of each one of the nobie beasts of burden 
which bore this test without flinching, in the days 
when his crop numbered its thousands of bales. 
" There are no such teams left in the county now," 
he will tell you, with another one of his patient sighs, 
** because the teamsters and trainers belong to another 
school." One corner of the Colonel's hall is quite 
encumbered with guns of all sizes and descriptions. 
And across the rafters, under the roof of the back 
gallery, is an accumulation of fishing-rods that date 
back to the first ones '* Fred " and " Al " ever tried 
to cope with. Before the war the Colonel asked no 
better sport than to hunt within the boundaries of his 
own estate. 

Then, as soon as the crop was picked out and the 
fields could not be injured, it was his delight to have 
a lot of good fellows out from town for partridge, 
snipe, and duck-shooting. The partridges nested all 



THE COLONEL. 7 

over his fields, then, and every man came with his own 
trained setter or pointer. A fair field and no favor. 
The man who shot a partridge before it was flushed 
was relegated to the dishonorable ranks of ** pot- 
hunters " — " on the wing " or not at all. The Colonel 
had been very proud of his swampy bit of snipe- 
ground — the best in the whole State — and the guest 
who would tackle his duck pond and come back to 
the house without at least ten brace, was scarcely 
considered worth inviting another season. His room 
had better be given to a better man. But time has 
changed all that, and since the Colonel has had to 
contend for his own game with a multitude of boors 
who boast the possession of cheap guns and yellow 
curs, he has ceased inviting " good fellows " out 
from town to show their prowess on his snipe-ground 
and duck-pond, and his pleasures in that line are 
purely reminiscent. 

It is pleasant to hear the Colonel talk of old times 
with the loquacity of increasing years. His remi- 
niscences are impersonal and entertaining, and 
embrace the social, commercial, and political status 
of the county from the time when he first took charge 
of his plantation. His most violent dissipation then, 
as now, was his annual trip to New Orleans, made, 
generally, promptly on the heels of his first shipment 
of cotton to his commission merchants. It was a 
good time to visit one's merchant if the crop was 
turning out unexpectedly well, for a little bragging 
would be safe under the circumstances, and would 
have a mellowing effect on the merchant. It was an 
equally good time to visit him if the crop threatened 



8 THE COLONEL. 

failure, for what ** advances " were to be extracted 
from him must be secured before the shortage became 
apparent. If the merchant proves propitious, the 
Colonel is apt to wax a little reckless in expenditure. 
He will go to *' the city " with a long list of neces- 
saries, prepared in solemn family conclave, ranging 
widely from a new riding horse for self and a Jersey 
cow for wife, down to a red plaid shawl for 
" Mammy's " Christmas gift. Mammy's name is 
never omitted from the list made out in family con- 
clave. The children are all grown up, and the boys 
have all *' passed over," but Mammy still holds sine- 
cure office at the big house. The Colonel always 
enjoys his three or four days' stay in New Orleans 
with zest born of long abstinence. His mornings 
will be consumed in shopping and making arrange- 
ments for next year with his commission merchant, 
these arrangements, as a rule, consisting of promises 
on his part predicated on the uncertain issue of a 
crop unplanted, and on the merchant's side of reluct- 
ant concessions to palpable necessities. His after- 
noons will be spent at the race-course, for the Colonel, 
like all of his class, is a lover of horseflesh and inter- 
ested in turf matters. His evenings he will devote to 
doing the theaters industriously. He will go back to 
the plantation as fresh as a boy after a holiday, car- 
rying with him sundry boxes and barrels containing 
the materialized family list with supplement of his 
own compiling, together with food for' animated con- 
verse for weeks, touching what he saw, said, and did 
while in the city. Events do not crowd so thickly 
into the Colonel's life as to dwarf this annual pilgrim- 



THE COLONEL. 9 

age into a thing of no moment, and every detail of it 
is deemed worthy of being retailed circumstantially to 
the small but select audience that composes his home 
circle. 

Not that he has no sources of entertainment more 
solid than this imported gossip. All his life he has 
been a rapid and omnivorous reader. He gets the 
'' weeklies " from all the large cities, and you will 
always find on the book-table which stands in the 
great hall that divides his home into hemispheres, the 
Philadelphia Times, The Nation, the New Orleans 
Times^ all of as late date as is possible in his locality, 
together with the leading magazines of the world. 
He does not skim them ; he reads them, and is better 
informed on the tariff and the Eastern question than 
many of the Congressmen who air their ignorance at 
the Capitol. The labors of his day close absolutely 
with the ringing of the six o'clock bell that calls in 
the field hands, and as public entertainments are not 
included in his plan of existence, his lamp-lit hours 
find him obliterating all the cares of the day in silent 
communion with some magnate of the kingdom of 
letters. 

In one corner of the big central hall you will find a 
high, old-fashioned book-case and writing-desk com- 
bined. In the lower part of it the Colonel stows his 
"accounts of sales " and his few business letters. He 
keeps no books ; wouldn't be bothered with them. In 
the shelves above are the volumes, bound in sober 
colors, that keep the Colonel's mind fresh and alert 
in the best sense of the word, even if they do not 
sharpen his wits for contact with sharpers. 



lo THE COLONEL. 

There are certain plantation observances which the 
Colonel still holds by, although the significance of 
them has departed forever. One of these observ- 
ances is the bringing around of his horse Billy, 
saddled, every morning at precisely the same hour, 
and the hitching of him to the horse-rack under the 
Cottonwood tree, just outside the front gate. This 
performance has been gone through with every morn- 
ing (unless the Colonel was in the city) since he came 
into possession of the place. Billy, like the Colonel 
himself, is gray and old, but the two Imderstand each 
other very thoroughly, and as neither of them is as 
fiery as he used to be, they get along together 
admirably. Billy has an equine sense of the ludi- 
crousness of the Colonel's thinking this regular morn- 
ing round can possibly affect the status of the crops 
being worked by freedmen, but it is a groove he and 
the Colonel have fallen into, and he's not going to be 
the one to shirk ; so he stolidly nibbles the top rail of 
the horse-rack until he sees the Colonel come out of 
the front door with his slouch hat worn a trifle far 
back on his gray locks, with his trowsers tucked 
jauntily into his top-boots, and with his cowhide 
whip stuck under his arm while he draws on his 
buckskin gauntlets. The Colonel will have to 
be more thoroughly reconstructed than he is 
yet, before he can bring himself to ride around 
the place bare-handed. The entire white family 
will stand on the front gallery to watch his de- 
parture, quite as if he were going on a long journey 
rather than doing what he has done every morning 
from time immemorial, and he would feel as if a 



THE COLONEL. Ii 

serious slight were being put upon him if he should 
glance back from Billy's back and see only the 
weather-beaten front of the house, which, like Billy 
and himself, is also gray and old. It is a work of 
supererogation for him to hold the reins over Billy's 
neck, for the programme of their route is such an 
ancient and well-established one that any departure 
from it would astonish the Colonel himself scarcely 
less than Billy. They will go first through the quarter 
lot, where the cabins stand in two long rows, and 
where with the keen inspection of a landlord the 
Colonel will take in every new sign of decadence about 
the premises, with a hopeless sigh over his own ina- 
bility either to stay or to cover up the ravages of time. 
He will dispense a few words of mild admonition to 
an irresponsible and thriftless tenantry before riding 
on, which will serve no other end than transient relief 
to the Colonel's righteous wrath. They, he and Billy, 
will pass systematically from squad to squad, watching 
the operations of plowing, planting, or picking, as 
the case may be, from which occupation the Colonel 
will turn away presently with a growing sense of his 
own insignificance. Time was when the, pleasantest 
part of the morning's programme was the riding across 
his own boundary line, marked by the Willow Slough, 
into " Levison's field" on one side, or *' Old Billy 
Scott's " on the other, to compare his own crops with 
those of his nearest neighbors, not in unkindly compe- 
tition, but with a community of interest. But Levison 
moved to the city after the war, and there's nobody 
on his place but a lot of darkies, and Scott, poor old 
fellow, is dead, and things have changed so on both 



12 THE COLONEL. 

places that the Colonel seldom cares to ride beyond 
the boundaries of his own place nowadays, unless it is 
mail-day, and then he and Billy will turn off through 
the chain-gate and ride a mile or two through the 
woods, where the low-hanging Spanish moss, as gray 
as his beard, smites him softly on the cheek, and the 
birds sing carelessly overhead in the trees, just as if 
this were a world where sorrow and change were quite 
unknown. If the mail-packet has arrived at the land- 
ing before him, the Colonel will gather his share and 
ride promptly back through the sweet-smelling woods, 
but if it has not, he will hitch old Billy alongside a 
waiting dozen or so of other horses, and seat himself 
composedly on one of the whittled wooden benches 
that support Sheldon's store gallery, and do what the 
other fellows are doing — wait and gossip. The pleas- 
ure has gone out of the waiting and the spice has gone 
out of the gossip of mail-day for the Colonel. His set 
has pretty much passed away, and the boys that have 
taken their places seem crude and pert to the Colonel. 
But to the boy planters he is an object of profoundest 
esteem and consideration. He knows so much, you 
know, and has such an affable way of imparting his 
information. A trifle grandiloquent, perhaps, but 
then the Colonel belongs to the old school. He is 
always in demand for the settlement of arguments, 
and in the matter of precedents he stands unri- 
valed. 

What was once the Colonel's reproach is now his 
boast. He was not an original secessionist ; but when 
the thing was forced upon him he shouldered his share 
of the pain and responsibility like the hero that he 



TitE COLONEL. 13 

Was. Not even when Fred's and Al's names stared at 
him from the ghastly Hst of the killed, that reached 
him in a ragged newspaper printed on wall-paper, did 
he flinch. He had leaned toward gradual emancipa- 
tion, but witnessed the flight of his entire body of 
slaves with grim - visaged composure. He lived 
through the war with stolid endurance, coming to 
regard coffee and flour as among the superfluous 
luxuries demanded by an effete civilization, and 
emerged from the horrors of the carpet-bag era with 
the dignity of a Roman senator. In politics, it is 
needless to say that the Colonel is a Democrat, but he 
is so inured to defeat that his party's repeated discom- 
fiture does not stir his pulse into higher activity. 

The Colonel feels assured of a few things only in 
these latter days. Among them is the conviction that 
his own day is past. He looks backward without 
shame and forward without trepidation. He spends 
more time in the Spanish-leather chair on the front 
gallery than he used to do, and he always faces it 
toward the gin-stack. The gin-stack is one of the 
few things that have not changed. He looks forward 
with composure to the time when another brick vault 
will be needed in the flower-garden, and has had a 
certain corner recently cleared of encroaching 
brambles. 

He likes to advise yet, and expends his most earnest 
efforts in that line on a young man who has bought 
the plantation just on the other side of Scott's. He 
would like this young man to perpetuate the Sims 
views and the Sims traditions in the county, and likes 
to think that since no son of his own loins will inherit 



14 TiiE coLoMeL 

them, Mamie has selected so sensible a son-in-law for 
him. It will not be, after all, total annihilation for the 
Colonel's memory when he shall have joined the great 
caravan, and fear of that has been his chief cause of 
sorrow since Fred and Al left him. Pride of place 
will abide with the Colonel as long as he lingers 
above ground, and when they lay him under the star- 
jessamines, another type will have perished from off 
the earth. 



CHAPTER II. 

UNRECONSTRUCTED. 

" T TNRECONSTRUCTED " is what all the nelgh- 
U bors call her, but that terrible word is gen- 
erally accompanied by pitying smiles that carry with 
them full and free condonation for all of pride, stub- 
bornness, unreasonableness, and ill-blood that can pos- 
sibly be conveyed in its five syllables. Looking at 
her from an archaeologist's point of view, one feels 
quite content that no reconstruction is ever likely to 
take place, she is such a rare specimen of the high- 
bred, high-principled, fastidious lady of the old school, 
the exclusive product of her own times. Even physi- 
cally, she has the value of an old-time painting, whose 
lights and shadows have been laid on by a cunning 
hand, whose every soft curve, fold of drapery, pose, 
fashion of -bodice, quaint coiffure, all have historic 
interest to the student of an era already become a 
thing of memories and traditions. By the aid of such 
finished specimens of Time's handicraft as the Widow 
Somers, and the study of her life experience, one is 
able to reconstruct for himself the social and political 
period to which she belongs. Locally she is regarded 
with that sort of pride usually inspired by any tradi- 
tion or landmark that carries with it a guarantee of 
respectability, and is cherished with the fostering care 



1 6 UNRECONSTRUCTED. 

one bestows on a rare old antique, which it would be 
impossible to replace. Indeed, with the delicate pink 
of her soft withered cheeks, where the fine grain cf 
the skin is still traceable, with the clean-cut lines of 
her nose, ears, and lips ; with the blue-veined tra- 
cery of temple and hand, and the sculpturesque folds 
of her black dress, she is very apt to make one recall 
a fine old cameo in some art collection. She is one 
of the few things in her neighborhood that have not 
undergone radical and pathetic changes since the war, 
and the muddy current of to-day's events sweeps by 
her door as unnoticed and uncared-for as if the great 
old rambling house, that can be seen only by glimpses 
from the public road through occasional lapses of foli- 
age in the sheltering trees, were an enchanted palace, 
holding her, its sleeping princess, locked in oblivion. 

Women are not good at ethical abstractions. 
Things are either good or bad, as they appeal to their 
own personality agreeably or otherwise, or as they 
affect the welfare of dearer objects than self. Neither 
the social nor political ethics of slavery had ever occu- 
pied the Widow Somers's mind for half a second. It 
was as much a matter-of-course that there should be 
slaves and slave-owners, she took it, as that there 
should be black men and white men, and as she had 
herself come of a long line of slave-owners (to doubt 
whose goodness and wisdom being a species of treach- 
ery she was utterly incapable of), she frowned down 
any ante-bellum discussion of this question as an 
unpardonable impertinence. The slaves, who loved 
her loyally and served her faithfully, were hers to have 
and to hold until death did them part, and whosoever 



U^RMcdNStRUC7'Ei>. i1 

should undertake to usurp death's prerogative in this 
matter was an object of her most withering condem- 
nation. It was Hke usurping the prerogative of Om- 
nipotence, you see. She and " her people" had be- 
longed to each other in mutual dependency forever and 
forever, it seemed to her, and she could conceive of 
no possibility of comfort for either side under a differ- 
ent state of affairs. There was Mammy (who still 
lives, a superannuated cumberer of the earth, sure of 
her physical comfort so long as " old Miss is 'bove 
ground"). Why, Mammy had been present at the 
birth of every one of her children, and together they 
had mingled their tears over more than one small 
mound, yonder under the clump of tall dark cedars 
in the corner of the orchard. Mammy had lived in 
the best cabin in the quarters for nearly all her life, 
and had been served with her meals from the family 
table ; what would become of her, turned loose in her 
helpless old age, to worry and skirmish over every 
mouthful of food she ate, and every stick of wood she 
burned ? No such horrible fate should ever befall 
Mammy so long as she could fend it off. And there 
was Puss, who had been about her ever since she 
could crawl up the front steps on all fours direct 
from the kitchen, where her mother was making 
things " hot" for something besides her culinary uten- 
sils, to take shelter behind '' Miss's" skirts, fleeing 
from the wrath she was too young to comprehend — 
Puss, so handy and so hideous, whose cavernous 
mouth expanded so gratefully when her mistress 
praised her clear-starching, or her floor-scrubbing, or 
her increased conscientiousness in the matter of cob- 



1 8 UNRECONS TR UCTED. 

webs and dauber-nests. Of course it would be possible 
for Puss to make a livelihood as a free woman out of 
the many accomplishments she had herself taught her, 
but who else (certainly no Northern woman) would 
consent to have such a physical monstrosity near her 
on terms of such close intimacy ? For Puss, intensely 
black, squat of form, flat-nosed and thick-lipped, was 
to be found of winter evenings crouching close in the 
chimney-corner of her mistress's sitting-room, gazing 
into the fire with wide-open eyes, as she dumbly ab- 
sorbed "w'ite folks' talk." Would she, Mrs. Somers, 
be the only loser if those intermeddling abolitionists 
should ever succeed in carrying their wildly chimeri- 
cal plans into execution ? And John, her dining-room 
servant, whom she had trained to such a degree of per- 
fection that her slightest nod conveyed a whole vol- 
ume of directions. And Adelaide, her seamstress, who 
was such an adept in fitting and fashioning. Weren't 
they all just as happy as they could possibly be ? 
What expense or responsibility rested on them ? And 
when John and Adelaide had concluded to get mar- 
ried, didn't she dress Adelaide herself in her own 
white silk grenadine that she hadn't worn a dozen 
times, and put the veil and wreath on with her own 
hands, and have the wedding supper set down stairs 
in the basement, and ice the wedding cake herself, and 
have the Rev. Dr. Robinson out from town to see 
that the knot was tied decently and in order ? Was 
any one going to take all that trouble for people who 
did not belong to them, and would not be with them 
for always ? And there were the medicines and the 
flannels and the " Christmas gifts." Plainly, in Mrs. 



UN RE CONS TR UC TED. 1 9 

Somers's estimation, all that was necessary to convert 
the most blatant freedom-shrieker to a firm belief in 
the beneficence of the Institution was that its work- 
ings should be fully understood and fairly investigated. 

It is possible to keep the gaze fixed. so firmly on 
one spot that every thing around and about that cen- 
tral object shall become blurred and obscured. Mrs. 
Somers had gazed upon the Institution from a pro- 
slavery point of view so long and so fixedly that 
the moral atmosphere which surrounded it was dense 
with confused and confusing mists. But she spent 
no thought on the mists nor on the menacing cloud 
into which they slowly but surely resolved themselves. 
Why should she ? It would be as if one purposely 
marred the pleasure of smooth and rapid transit over 
an unobstructed railroad by horrible forebodings of 
possible smash-ups before the journey's end. The 
smash-up might come through somebody's blunder, 
but it was scarcely likely to come in her time, and 
there was a great deal to be enjoyed meanwhile on her 
exceedingly smooth-running line. 

Yes, there were countless pleasant ante-bellum activ- 
ities in the rambling old house that stands behind a 
grove of gnarled live-oaks and stately pecans, inter- 
spersed with the white locust, whose pendulous clus- 
ters of bloom make the air heavy with their sweetness 
in the spring-time. The house is much too large now. 
It was scarcely large enough then, especially when all 
" the children " were at home and impromptu gather- 
ings kept the mistress, and Mammy and John and 
Puss and Adelaide and a score or two more of the 
black folks in a state of delightful excitement over 



20 UNRECONSTRUCTED. 

the festivities. The children were all grown up before 
the war. " All ready for the sacrifice," is the way she 
words it now. She was very proud of the three stal- 
wart boys, who were so fond of measuring heights 
with each other and with their father on the rallying 
days when they gathered under the home-roof for some 
family or national anniversary. But whether the boys 
were at home or not, the hours were never too long 
for her in those full, sweet days. There were new 
violet beds to be set out, and cuttings from the beauti- 
ful Lamarque rose that clambered over the summer- 
house in the garden to be layered before the old stock 
should become woody and worthless, and there were 
the Hovey seedlings to be planted in the land best 
suited to that daintiest but most capricious of all 
the berries, and there were fresh vistas to be cut out 
in the skirt of woods that fills the hill-side between the 
house and the road. Not that there were any land- 
scape views of particular beauty to be preserved from 
encroaching limbs and twigs, but because it was always 
desirable to see approaching carriages from a distance. 
And there were the red and white cypress vines to be 
trained annually over the ugly tree stump near the 
front gate, and the Madeira vines over the front gallery 
to be kept from bold usurpation of all the available 
space ; and there were labels to -put on all the trans- 
lucent jellies and preserves that came to her in a state 
of perfection from Mammy's skilled hands. She pitied 
those of her neighbors who had to " worry " over 
their own preserves and pickles. She never did. She 
simply reaped the reward of the instructions she 
instilled into the receptive minds of her servants. 



UNRECONSTRUCTED. 21 

She never meant, when her boys should all be through 
with college, and come back home to her, that they 
should be ashamed of their mother, and find in her 
nothing better than a wrinkled-browed, fretful house- 
hold drudge. She intended to fight off the inevitable 
rival of younger and fairer faces as long as possible. 
For the boys' sake, then, she kept up the music that 
had been one of the lures " the Judge " had fallen a 
victim to in his courting days. The piano grew old 
and asthmatic, and the melodies it sounded grew old- 
fashioned, and the Judge grew indifferent ; the under- 
lying purpose alone retained its pristine vigor. There 
was one of the boys still at college, and one reading 
law, and the other attending medical lectures in ^' the 
city." What a brilliant home circle she would have 
when they were all settled in the old neighborhood, 
'' pursuing their careers ! " So she forced herself 
to an abnormal interest in the newspapers, which 
the Judge devoured voraciously in semi-weekly 
batches, and kept herself familiar with the literature 
that was most likely to prove attractive to vigorous 
young minds " like the boys." " She was a great 
woman," the Judge would declare, intones that defied 
contradiction, and whatever indication of unusual 
brightness scintillated from any one of the boys was 
accredited to her with self-abnegation unusual among 
men. So she reigned right royally as wife, mother, 
mistress, accepting the ease of her lot as a thing of 
course and immutable. And its soft, smooth conditions, 
entering into her own moral, mental, and physical 
mechanism, made of her the very sweet and gracious 
lady she was. 



2 2 UNRECONS TR UC TED. 

But there came the inevitable time when the cloud 
that had been roUing itself up from the unnoted mists 
through all those sunlit years, grew black and por- 
tentous, and burst with a threatening sound over her 
head. It stunned her at first. It was unprecedented. 
She could recall a precedent for almost every thing 
that had ever befallen her before. The sensation of 
being jolted out of a groove one has run in smoothly 
for nearly a lifetime is confusing and jarring you know. 
The smash-up had come, and in her time at that. 
Confusion and pride and resentment reigned supreme 
in those first days. Of course, nothing would be 
easier than to get the machine back on the track ; to 
which end every shoulder must be put to the wheel. 
She sent more than her fair quota of shoulders to the 
task — a father and three sons. Then she put her own 
to it. She lamented they were only a pair of feeble 
woman's shoulders and could only afford minor assist- 
ance, but the amount of that minor assistance that ghe 
afforded in the way of lint-scraping, and salve-con- 
cocting, and sock-knitting, and converting of her 
handsome stuff curtains into clumsy soldier shirts, and 
the like, was incredible. She worked hard, and late, 
and early. Her strength was fed by the fires of her 
indignation and her pride ; and then work was good 
for her when there was no sound of a boot-heel heard 
in the big empty rooms all day, no stray hat on chair 
or table to be decorously remanded to the useless rack 
in the hall, no sound of boyish whistling, no calling 
to the hounds, that strained at their leashes in eager 
anticipation of a run. She could even forgive them 
the cigar-smoke now, that had been such an abomi- 



UNRECONS TR UCTED. 23 

nation in her fastidious nostrils in the days just gone. 
But tiie good old times would come back again, and 
when her four heroes returned laurel-crowned they 
should find what a queen of finance she had proven 
herself to be. So the violet beds grew tangled and 
weedy, and the Lamarque cuttings died from neglect, 
and the strawberry beds were all runners, while the 
mistress of the old home grappled with graver matters 
and turned her attention to " running the place." It 
would be easy enough. Habits of life-long obedience 
would not be easily cast off at the bidding of a few 
restless spirits who had caught eagerly at the first far- 
away whisper of freedom. If defection seized upon 
every place in the country, she was sure of her people ; 
they were bound together so indissolubly by ties of 
kindness that had strengthened the bonds of owner- 
ship. 

Then came the day when astonishment swallowed 
up every other emotion and left her finally minus the 
power to re-resolve any thing. It was the day, when, 
standing on her front gallery, where the Madeira vines 
in ripened bloom were scattering their tiny stars in a 
fragrant shower on her head and shoulders, as she 
stood staring through the clustering tendrils, she saw 
a long mounted procession file past the front gate 
silently and decorously, but unfaltering in its defiant 
purpose. At the head of the procession were her own 
carriage and horses. In the driver's seat was her 
own coachman Maurice. Inside — she could see them 
all so horribly plainly — were John and Adelaide and 
Puss ; her John, her Adelaide, her Puss. They had 
the grace not to look at her as she stood pale, wounded, 



24 UNRECONS TR UC TED, 

impotent, but moved on out of her sight forever, with 
their faces turned steadily away from her and toward 
freedom. Next in procession came the boys' ponies 
and the Judge's own riding horse, " Red Ben," that 
she was always afraid to see him mount. The ponies 
cantered by as gayly with their bare-foot, hatless, rag- 
ged riders, as if her own handsome sons were urging 
them forward. She hated the ponies for their ready 
transfer of allegiance, but " Red Ben " hung his 
proud head sullenly, as if conscious that he was being 
put to very base uses indeed. On they pass, men, 
women and children, some sending a half-apologetic 
look back over their shoulders, as if even in the 
supreme moment of emancipation it was not easy to 
omit the deference always shown heretofore to the 
stately lady gazing at them mutely from the vine-clad 
gallery of the big house. She never remembered how 
long she had stood looking at the vanishing proces- 
sion. When the last tardy mule sprang forward under 
the prick of spur, and disappeared beyond the osage- 
orange hedging that bordered the plantation, a feel- 
ing as if she had been left alone to fill all space took 
possession of her and bowed her momentarily as some 
stately pine might bend involuntarily before the storm 
blast. 

And to the day of astonishment succeeded the days 
of trial, when she gazed out in helpless impatience at 
the white v/aste of the cotton crop, which there was 
no one to pick, and saw marauding stock in full posses- 
sion of the fat corn-fields, and watched the calves chew- 
ing the bark from the costly fruit trees the Judge had 
Imported at such expense, and watched over so jeal- 



UN RE CONS TR UC TED. 2 5 

OLisly, and knew there was no help for it all, for only 
a half dozen old people remained in the once populous 
quarters, and old Mammy and her husband, old Jake, 
were left in the yard " to do " for the mistress of the 
big house ; when life seemed to resolve itself into 
endurance of hardship and indignity and suspense. 
It was then that the lines began to gather on the firm 
white forehead and mar its alabaster smoothness ; it 
was then that she acquired that pathetic trick of pac- 
ing the long gallery with her arms patiently folded 
over such a heavy, heavy heart. All her plans of 
keeping up the place had come to naught, and the 
days were so horribly long and empty. It was easier 
pacing the gallery than sitting still in the large rooms 
waiting for the voices that were so long coming back 
to fill them with the olden music. She could see the 
big gate at the end of the pasture from the front gal- 
lery. Whatever or whoever should come to break this 
spell of lonely idleness and heart-sickness must come 
through that gate. The wooden latch was knocked 
off by two contending steers one night, and the gate 
sagged badly on its rusty hinges as it swung open, 
showing the muddy road under the dark trees beyond ; 
but there was no need of mending the gate, or closing 
it either ; there was nothing in the fields to protect. 
Nothing mattered much, anyhow, in those days of 
waiting. 

There were those who would have had the Judge's 
wife leave the old homestead, and cast in her lot with 
others who were bearing a like burden of suspense and 
anxiety, but she had one answer for them all. She 
gave it kindly, graciously, gratefully, if you please, 



26 UNRECONSTRUCTED. 

but always firmly : '* She could not sleep under any 
other roof. Mammy and Jake would take care of her 
well enough, and she must wait for them at home." 
She never put it into words exactly who she must 
wait for, for perhaps — only perhaps — some of them 
might not come back to her. So she stayed all alone 
in the big empty house until the Madeira vine had 
shed all its stars, and spent all its sweetness, until the 
soft purple bloom of the China trees had passed into 
the hard yellow ugly balls of their seed-time, and the 
pink clouds of the crape myrtle had been scattered by 
the pitiless rains and winds that spared no thing of 
beauty in the large front yard, excepting the sturdy 
oaks and the towering pecans that were able to defy 
the bluster of the elements. 

And to the day of trial succeeded the day of despair, 
when she paced the long gallery at fitful intervals all 
day until the darkness hid from her strained gaze the 
sagging gate and the road beyond, lying back under 
the shadows of the moss-bearded trees, looking for 
tidings that never came, yearning for forms that 
could not come, for the river was blockaded and the 
siege of Vicksburg was raging hotly, and there was 
nothing to do at home but watch and wait. She 
could hear the guns at Vicksburg — far away, muffled 
by distance, but as each shot fell on her strained ear, 
her wounded heart gave a quick fierce throb. Who 
knew where that shrapnel had burst? Who knew — 
who would tell her and shorten the agony of the long 
silent moments that fell between ? There were lives 
in that beleaguered city she w^ould gladly have laid 
down her own for. But there was nothing for her to 



UNK E CONS 1 'R UCTED. 27 

do but watch and wait and wonder why the vials of 
wrath should have been emptied so fully on her head. 
Women are rarely impersonal — suffering women never 
are. 

And to the day of despair succeeded the day of 
lamentation. When the far-off muffled guns of Vicks- 
burg were silenced ; when the nearer, quicker, louder 
detonations from the gun-boats in the river told the 
story of Lee's surrender ; when straggling soldiers, 
footsore and weary, found their way back in tatters 
and in defeat to ruined homes ; when the longtime of 
waiting came to an end, and through the sagged gate 
which had stood open for three fruitless years, there 
wandered afoot a man in a worn gray uniform, listless 
of step, lack-luster of eye, tired of body, tired of heart, 
tired of soul. A ragged beard fell far down on his 
breast, he stooped as he walked, and stopped every 
now and then to cough. He knew he was at home, 
for whatever else might have happened, the old place 
could not have moved ; but it all looked strange. 
The trim hedging was unkept and ragged, and the 
shutters of the house had a rowdyish, dissipated look, 
as they flapped dismally to and fro on broken hinges, 
and the tall insolent coffee weeds in the front yard 
seemed more at home than he as he parted them with 
a thin trembling hand to expedite his progress up to 
the front steps, where a gray-haired woman stood 
eying him curiously and hesitatingly, not daring to 
trust to the mother instinct alone in behalf of this 
poor human wreck. 

That was all that ever came back to her ; a witless 
paroled prisoner, too much of a mental wreck to grieve 



2 8 UNK E CONS TR UC TED. 

with her over the universal devastation. He brought 
her no news of the others. His three years of service 
had been spent in a miHtary prison. 

She took up her marred Hfe as best she could. 
Around the wreck of her one restored child the torn 
tendrils of mother love have twined themselves death- 
lessly. No one has ever heard any noisy outburst 
against the decree of high heaven. She is not con- 
sciously submissive. She is simply carrying out the 
practice of a lifetime by bearing the inevitable with 
dignity. The place has resumed activity on a new 
basis. Strange faces fill the old cabins, strange names 
are on her plantation books. She takes no interest in 
them, nor they in her. She rents them her land and 
houses for so many pounds of lint-cotton and so many 
bushels of corn. She is the " Widder Somers " to 
them, and they are her tenants. They are not " her 
people," and she is not their " ol' Miss." They 
stand on a cold business platform, and are mutually 
watchful. And because she still mourns for those 
who never came back to her, because she still weeps 
with those who weep, but refuses to rejoice with those 
who rejoice ; because she turns away with a sick heart 
from the bitter mockery of Decoration Day to wonder 
where her dead are sleeping ; because she is a woman 
and not a philosopher ; because she is not content 
that a nation's everlasting weal has been built upon 
the ruins of her own life and home ; people call her 
unreconstructed. 



CHAPTER III. 

CAPTAIN TOM. 

EVERY man, woman, and child, black and white, 
living between Vicksburg and New Orleans, 
along the line of Mississippi River travel, knows of 
him if they do not know him, this great rugged Captain 
Tom, with the voice of a lion and the heart of a girl ; 
and what with his fifty years of going up and down 
the watery highway that leads right by their door- 
yards, he must needs have been as unimpressionable 
as the gay effigy of the Indian chief that is perched 
aloft on the . pilot-house of his big steamboat, not 
to have gotten his heart-strings inextricably tan- 
gled up with those that beat under the various familiar 
roof-trees he sees from his hurricane deck twice every 
week, once as he goes up stream under a pressure of 
steam and rush of hurrying paddle-wheels, scattering 
a miscellaneous cargo, and again when he travels city- 
ward more leisurely, stopping to pick up a couple of 
bales of cotton here, a pile of cottonseed there, now 
to take on a shivering passenger whose whereabouts 
have been revealed by the flickering flame of an ex- 
hausted bonfire, or again landing amiably in response 
to a fluttering handkerchief held aloft in a girl's small 
hand. 



30 CAPTAIN TOM, 

He belongs properly to the flush period of steam- 
boating on the Mississippi River, and no one knows 
better than he does that the glory of it is departed for- 
ever ; but in spite of intruding railroads and waning 
river traffic, he still holds the helm stiffly against all 
adverse currents, and when he shall have pulled the 
great bell-rope on his hurricane deck for the last time, 
and silently shall have submitted to the pilotage of 
the grim ferryman, another type will have been oblit- 
erated from time's blurred tablets ; for the changed 
condition of affairs precludes the possibility of another 
generation of Captain Toms. 

He knows every bend and curve and point on the 
river between Vicksburg and New Orleans, and can 
tell you on the darkest night, within a fraction of a 
mile, where he is and how long it will take him to 
make the next bend. It is with a solemn sense of the 
march of the years that he will point you to a barren 
sandbar here, and tell you of the broad rich acres and 
the stately ginhouse and the pretty homestead he has 
seen ingulfed little by little by the merciless waves 
that now lap the glistening sands of the bar with a 
murmur as soft as a mother's lullaby. It is with a 
sense of personal antiquity that he will tell you all 
about the Raccourci cut off as you shoot through it 
now standing by his side on the roof of the Texas, 
which once he had to circumvent by twenty tedious 
miles. *' He was younger then," he will tell you with 
a deep-chested sigh, not that he looks old now, or ever 
will suggest senility any more than the grand oaks, 
with their widespreading branches that bourgeon afresh 
every year, for there is a perennial freshness that 



CAPTAIN TOM. 3I 

springs from Captain Tom's heart and keeps him young. 
In the ladies' saloon, over the grand piano, hangs a 
portrait in an elaborate gilt frame. It is the portrait 
of a man with a large round head, covered with short, 
curly, black hair. In the portrait are a pair of keen 
black eyes, that look out on the world from under 
shaggy black eyebrows, like awnings. The man in 
the portrait has an iron jaw and a firm-set mouth that 
seems made for words of command. There is a merry 
twinkle in the black eyes, and there are amiable curves 
in the corners of the firm-set mouth ; but it is not a 
handsome face, that pictured face of Captain Tom 
" in his thirties." Out on the decks to-day, in storms 
that blind or in heat that blisters, buttoned to the chin 
in his great shaggy *' dreadnaught," or divested of 
every article of clothing that civilized man can dis- 
pense with in the dog days, treads the original of the 
portrait, square shouldered and square-jawed, and 
upright as of old ; but the curly hair is a grizzled gray, 
and the keen black eyes look out on the world from 
under bleached awnings. The elements have dealt 
kindly with him. He is their own familiar, and they 
have transmuted some of their subtle forces into his 
hardy veins by an alchemy known only to themselves. 
Nor wind, nor rain, nor heat, nor cold hold any terrors 
for him ; they pay him tribute in rich blood and 
boundless vigor. 

When Captain Tom leaves port with a full comple- 
ment of passengers, his sense of responsibility is 
great, but not overpowering. '' Never missed a trip 
or lost a steamer," is the eulogy he is proudest to hear 
passed upon him, and it would quite satisfy him in 



32 CAPTAIN TOM. 

the matter of an epitaph. Helmsman, host, politi- 
cian, pilot, commander and caterer, are all combined 
in his potent personality. His word is law through- 
out the length and breadth of the stately craft that 
is at once the pride of his life and the cause of sleep- 
less vigilance in him. His intelligent supervision 
extends from the man at the wheel, into whose keep- 
ing precious lives are confided, to the steward, whose 
duty it is to cater to capricious feminine appetites. 
Nothing that involves the welfare of his passengers, 
who are for the time being his honored guests, is too 
onerous or too trivial for his interest. Planters along 
his route place their wives and daughters under his 
care for trips to '' the city " with as complete a sense 
of security as when they intrust their entire crops to 
him for transmission to the hands of the commission 
merchants who hold liens on them. Women and 
children sleep peacefully under the low ceilings of 
their state-rooms on Captain Tom's boat, satisfied to 
know that the heavy craunching footfall that sounds 
sometimes as if it must come through the thin planks 
over their heads, is an indication that he is " making 
the rounds," and whether the huge paddle-wheels 
revolve slowly and cautiously through the thick, white 
fog, or the steamer crashes recklessly into the drift- 
piles that impede her progress, or plunges forward 
through smooth waters with quick, palpitating sighs 
and fiery breath, there is a cool head and a keen eye 
on the alert for their welfare, and drowsy blessings fol- 
low close upon the craunching footfalls. 

Captain Tom is no mere fetcher and carrier. His 
interest in the dwellers upon the familiar banks 



CAPTAIN TOM. 33 

between which his boat plies her busy way up and 
down, year in and year out, is not simply that of a 
man who " makes his living out of them." He knows 
the members of every household whose roof-tree is 
visible from the hurricane-deck of his steamer. He 
knew the Evans place, one of the " brag " sugar plan- 
tations on the coast, when it was nothing but a clear- 
ing with a few rude shanties scattered about among 
the tree stumps. He will point you to the stately 
mansion only partly visible now from behind its shel- 
tering grove of live-oaks and pecans, and tell you, 
with a sort of proprietary interest in it, how he 
brought " every stick of timber in it, down to the 
doors and sash," up from the city for Evans when he 
concluded to get married and live on the place him- 
self, and, as the selection of the wedding-ring and of 
the parlor furniture was left to Captain Tom, he natur- 
ally considers that he holds no inconsiderable share of 
responsibility for Evans's weal or woe. That was a 
long time ago, however — long enough for the oaks 
and the pecans that were saplings when he landed 
with Evans's wedding-cake to grow up into stately 
shade trees and almost hide the house from the river. 
When Evans brought his oldest daughter aboard a 
few trips back, and shipped her to the school of the 
Sacred Heart, down near the city, under Captain Tom's 
care, he said it made him feel awfully old. 

He will tell you that he must stop at Black Hawk 
Point going down, whether there's any cotton on the 
bank or not, because when he landed coming up, to 
put off a lot of sugar-house molasses. Colonel Staves 
sent aboard for a lump of ice and they told him Mrs. 



34 CAPTAIN rOM. 

Staves had swamp fever. He's had "a lot of jellies 
and other sick folks' gim-cracks " made by his pastry 
cook for her. Money won't buy sick folks' victuals 
on the plantations. He and Mrs. Staves have been 
" running " together ever since he's been steamboat- 
ing, and she shan't want for any thing it's in his power 
to procure for her. Mrs. Staves will wait a week for 
Captain Tom's boat or give up her trip to the city 
altogether, rather than go wMth any one else. She is 
convinced that if mortal man can put travel by steam 
beyond the peradventure of death by a " blow-up," 
Captain Tom is that mortal, and Captain Tom rewards 
her appreciation by never forgetting to send some- 
thing good up to the house — a can of oysters, or a 
red fish, or a big bunch of bananas. Sometimes a 
return comes immediately in the shape of a bucket of 
fresh buttermilk (the Captain has bucolic tastes, despite 
his maritime training) ; on other occasions Mrs. 
Staves and the girls will go to the end of the front 
gallery and wave their thanks and^reetings with their 
handkerchiefs. 

Captain Tom comes as near achieving ubiquity as 
mortal can. At the first shrill whistle for a landing 
he appears promptly and conspicuously on deck, 
where his keen eye follows the slow, swinging motion 
of the ponderous craft until her pointed bow touches 
the sandy bank with scarce more force than would be 
required to crack an egg-shell. If it's only a lot of 
freight to take on, he will stand ready to pull the bell- 
rope as the last roustabout trots briskly across the 
stage plank with box or sack on shoulder, but if any 
of '' the boys " are on the bank, there are '' howdy- 



CAPTAIN TOM. 35 

do's " to be waved with hat and hand, cordial invita- 
tions to be shouted from his strong lungs to " come 
aboard and have something." If time permits, the 
invitation is rarely needed, and seldom^r declined, and 
Captain Tom will placidly command that ** her nose be 
held to the bank " until he has ordered a julep or 
cock-tail mixed at the bar for his visitors, and has 
sent them ashore with the latest newspaper in their 
hands and half-a-dozen good cigars in their side- 
pockets. While the refreshment is being prepared 
and disposed of he will make himself acquainted with 
the state of the crops and the probable date of first 
shipments of all the plantations for miles inland. For 
he is not afraid of asking questions, and his curiosity 
is in the legitimate line of business. No one knows 
when he takes his rest. Up in the Texas (a tier of 
state-rooms on the upper deck devoted to the officers) 
IS a little den known as the '' Captain's room," but no 
one ever catches him napping in it. The boat never 
'.ands, day or night, that his clear commanding voice is 
'not heard from the hurricane deck. Between whiles a 
huge heap of shaggy overcoat and soft hat and grizzled 
hair and weather-beaten cheeks may be seen for a few 
seconds at a time in a state of semi-unconsciousness 
in an arm-chair in the '' Social Hall," as the lower 
cabin is called, but not for long. There's a lot of 
ladies back in the cabin he has promised to " look 
after," and some youngsters who have been begging to 
be taken up in the pilot house, or a row between the 
mate and the roustabouts is to be settled, and he must 
not forget to remind the barber about that preparation 
for bald heads he promised Colonel Wiggins to put off 



36 CAPTAIN TOM. 

the next time they landed at his place, and there's the 
bridal state-room to be got ready for Ned Benson's 
daughter. Ned told him the young people were going 
down with hinf when he came back, and he's going to 
give them " a regular spread " before they get to the 
city. 

Nothing disconcerts Captain Tom quicker than a 
glum-looking crowd of passengers. With a large sense 
of personal responsibility for their spirits and appetites, 
as well as their bodies, he caters industriously to the 
tastes of all. There's a band for the young people to 
dance by after the supper tables are cleared away, and 
there's the universal resource for the male travelers, 
the card tables, down in the Social Hall. He will 
stand over the players at odd moments and take a 
lively interest in the game if it is a gentleman's game, 
played to relieve the tedium of a long, slow Lrip to the 
city, but if any sharp practice is discovered, or Captain 
Tom has reason to believe a " blackleg " has found 
his way into the group about the table, his denuncia- 
tion of him is open and merciless, and the girl element 
in the rugged old sea Hon is completely obscured in 
the roar of his wordy indignation. 

The walls of the clerk's office are hung thick with 
" testimonials of regard " that have accumulated on 
Captain Tom's hands in the many years of his public 
service, and it is pleasant to hear the old man tell the 
story of each one, with the invariable final clause : 
" He never could quite see into it. He'd never done 
any thing special for the donor, but folks always did 
treat him better than he deserved." 

Captain Tom's life is divided into three epochs. One 



CAPTAUV TOM. 37 

dates from the time when he was lying alongside a lot 
of steamers at the levee in New Orleans, when one of 
them caught fire, and among the passengers who 
sprang from the burning deck to his own for safety 
was a beautiful young lady who afterwards became 
Mrs. Tom. She has one of the loveliest of homes in 
the Crescent City, and every week, as soon as his cargo 
has been safely deposited on the wharf at New Orleans, 
Captain Tom goes home as fast as hack horses can carry 
him. The atmosphere he lives in during his two or 
three days in port is in sharp contrast with his deck 
life. It is a life of smooth happenings, of luxurious 
surroundings, of refined influences, and the lion voice 
is modulated accordingly. He has a great deal to hear 
in that short period of time, for there are boys and 
girls passing through the agitating period of school 
and college days, and there are numerous domestic 
contingencies to be provided for, all of which is delight- 
fully entertaining to Captain Tom. But he disports 
himself in his wife's beautiful parlors somewhat after the 
manner of an estray walrus, and fragile things fre- 
quently come to grief during his limited sojourn. He 
feels vastly uncomfortable in the dress-coat that super- 
sedes his dreadnaught on shore, and dearly as he 
loves the whole brood whose nest he has feathered 
so softly, he breathes a trifle freer when he once more 
finds himself on his own deck, with the gulf breezes 
blowing his gray locks about and the forest of masts at 
the levee growing small in perspective. 

The second epoch takes in the war. Captain Tom 
was not an original secessionist, but when the thing 
became inevitable he went into it with the ardor he 



3'^ CAPTAIN TOM. 

throws into every thing he does. When the river was 
blockaded, Hfe became practically aimless to him. 
There was nothing he could do. He mourned partic- 
ularly over the fact that he had put a brand-new boat 
into the trade just before the " racket commenced." 
Yes, there was one thing he could and did do. He 
could keep " her "(his boats are his lady-loves) from 
fallmg into the enemy's hands, to be made into a gun- 
boat. Her pretty sides should never be punched into 
port-holes, through which black-mouthed cannon 
might belch fire and smoke at the boys in gray. Noth- 
ing was easier than to run her up the Yazoo and let 
her catch fire accidentally. He stood on the bank 
and watched her burn, through a mist that obscured 
the brightness of his keen eyes, but he never wished 
her back. She was his own, and he had put it out of 
her power to become a terror to the people who had 
always greeted her coming with smiles of welcome. 
That was all. After that he went back to the home 
in the city and " loafed," extracting what comfort there 
was to be extracted from the cultivation of cabbages 
and roses in the daytime, employing every idle moment 
with plans of the boat he was going to build as soon 
as the war was over. One of Captain Tom's harm- 
less hallucinations is that he is an authority on the 
culture of cabbages and roses, and since the period of 
his enforced activity in that line he has dispensed 
volumes of unsolicited advice on the subject with sub- 
lime conceit. 

The third and most important epoch in his life dates 
from the '' big race," and as the years glide by and 
the old sea lion inclines slightly toward garrulity, the 



CAPTAIN TOM. 39 

Story of the big race is heard oftener and the details 
grow fuller, and his own reminiscent joy over the 
result more keen. To hear Captain Tom tell in tones 
that vibrate with resuscitated indignation of the taunts 
that were flung at the new boat by her most puissant 
rival, and the partisanship that was splitting all the 
riparian folk into factions, and of his final challenge 
to a race that should settle forever the supremacy of 
the best steamer, is to hear him in his most eloquent 
vein. To follow him through the frenzied zeal of 
preparation, when he stripped '* her " of every super- 
fluous pound of weight, even to the sash in the pilot- 
house and the heavy cabin furniture ; when hogsheads 
of bacon and barrels of oil were held in reserve as 
possible fuel ; when would-be passengers were warned 
off the boat as from a magazine of explosives, is to 
feel one's pulse begin to thrill with anticipatory excite- 
ment, and to experience the pangs of incipient parti- 
sanship. To see his huge chest heave and expand, 
his bright keen eyes flash under their white pent- 
houses of brows, his ponderous fist emphasize the 
rapidity with which " she took Roundout Point," or 
" leaped like a greyhound around Dennises Bend," 
or " skimmed the water like a sea-gull, from the Hunt 
Place to Crooked Bayou," is to see the race yourself, 
and to participate in all of Captain Tom's tense fluct- 
uations of fear and hope. Nothing on earth will ever 
again have power to stir his whole being to frenzied 
effort as did the big race, and no river contest will 
ever come up for discussion that will not have to 
stand the test of comparison with that supreme effort. 
Captain Tom's boats are no mere things of wood and 



40 CAPTAIN TOM. 

iron skillfully combined with a view to running prop- 
erties. They are Jiving, moving, sentient things to 
him, and he will recall for you the qualifications of 
every boat that has called him master with the ten- 
der, lingering tones of one who mourns some loved 
and companionable human friend. Praises bestowed 
upon '-'- her " are as sweet to his ears as are the praises 
of her first-born babe to a fond young mother. But 
Captain Tom is not specially partial to his first-born ; it 
is his last-born, his Benjamin, the winner of the big 
race, that taxes his powers of eulogy to the utmost. 

No local politician is better posted in the game of 
chance that puts one man in office and another out, 
than Captain Tom, and he resents the imputation that 
because he is afloat he is without the pale of interest. 
The era of the carpet-bagger filled his honest breast 
with righteous wrath. He takes mild satisfaction in 
chaffing his Northern passengers on the mythical 
terrors of the Kuklux Klan against whom he pledges 
himself to protect them wnth the last drop of blood 
in his veins. He knows what all the politicians at 
Washington are doing and what they are leaving 
undone, and considers that the bill for the improve- 
ment of the Mississippi River is the only one of any 
importance that has been brought before the house 
for an age. He hasn't much faith in any of the ideas 
modern marine engineers have brought to bear on 
that irrepressible stream, and wouldn't give an ounce 
of practical common-sense for all the scientific theories 
in the world. He opposes his views, as an experienced 
and observant river man, boldly against the men of 



CAPTAIN TOM. 41 

science, and those who think Captain Tom " is in the 
right of it " are not hard to find. 

In the holidays, that is, in the week that falls just 
before Christmas, his boat and himself become the 
dispensers of a solid stream of comfort that is only 
exhausted when he reaches the wharf boat and Vicks- 
burg. Poor and insignificant indeed must that planter 
be who " ships " by Captain Tom without being remem- 
bered in his annual distribution of black cake, (made 
and handsomely iced in the steward's pantry), oranges, 
oysters, and bananas. If there is something of policy 
in this, there is more of friendship, and as the seasons 
come and go, and the boat comes and goes, the bond 
that binds the old captain to his landed constituency 
waxes stronger and is held more precious, for the 
weal of one is the weal of the other — they stand or 
fall together. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Ol' Miss. 

IN a great rambling old house which travelers on 
the Fayette Road can not even catch a glimpse of 
for the jealous guardianship of acres of live-oaks, 
magnolias, and dogwoods that spread their sheltering 
arms about it, one perfect specimen of this almost 
extinct species is still to be found. The first glimpse 
of the casket that contains this gem of purest ray 
serene is disappointing, The " casket " is locally 
known as " Magnolia Hall." Its boundary fence, a 
dilapidated, worn affair, stretches for several miles 
alongside the red-clay road that has an incurable 
propensity for running into gulches and wash-outs. 
With phenomenal lack of foresight on somebody's 
part, or malice prepense on the part of inanimate 
things, one of the most incurable of these gulches is 
immediately in front of the big gate that leads from 
the road to the door of the Hall. One of the local 
problems that time has yet to solve is how to circum- 
vent the " bad place " at the Magnolia gate in winter. 
People who are easily discouraged do not try to cir- 
cumvent it ; they simply avoid it on wheels, which 
has a tendency to increase the isolation of the big 
rambling white house behind the sheltering trees ; 



OU MISS. 43 

but the current of life flows through it with an 
independent full sweep of its own. 

Against the inner walls of this old house, which is 
perched on its crumbling terraces with monumental 
dignity, hang two oil portraits in gilt frames of such 
marked difference in style and costliness that they 
mutely tell the story of financial decay that has been 
going on steadily at Magnolia Hall for the last 
quarter of a century. But they tell another and a still 
more pathetic story of the ravages of time. The 
oldest portrait, the one with the gorgeously heavy 
frame (it hangs in the up-stairs bedroom with the 
dormer window now), is the picture of a very slim 
young lady sitting preternaturally erect in a stiff- 
backed chair. Her shining black hair is combed 
smoothly over the brow, from which it takes a sudden 
and violent departure in two hemispherical bandeaux 
of immense circumference ; the head is turned suffi- 
ciently sidewise to give a view of loop upon loop of 
broad flat braids hanging low upon the smooth white 
nape of her neck. One bright red rose rests against 
them. Above the slim waist, the blue silk belt holds 
in bondage sweet, a companion rose to the one among 
the braids, the whole picture, with its soft white throat, 
its ripe red lips, and large innocent eyes, looking out 
on an untried world with shy interest, suggests some 
bright-hued flower springing from a mound of snow ; 
for below the waist there is an expanse of white 
drapery whose circularity convicts " ol' Miss " of 
having worn '' tilters " of the extremest capacity in 
her youth. Her husband had this picture painted 
before .the honeymoon had waned, The silver 



44 OV MISS. 

filagree bouquet-holder, full of red roses, that hangs 
in the picture, suspended from the silk belt by a 
slender chain, and the big white feather fan clasped 
in her slim hands, were among the wedding presents, 
or Miss calls it a foolish picture now, and has put it 
in the least frequented room in the house, but if any- 
one of unusual discernment insists upon it that they 
can still see the likeness, a pretty pink flush will mount 
high in her cheeks, which are no longer round and 
plump and smooth. 

The other portrait, the one in the cheap frame, 
hangs over the parlor mantle-shelf. The hair in that 
one is white and thin. Adown the cheeks, hanging 
pendent from the widow's cap that crowns them, are 
gauze ribbon strings, purple and white. For the rest, 
a clinging black dress supplies the space once filled 
up by the red roses and the bouquet-holder and the 
big fan and the clouds of voluminous white drapery. 
The eyes, in this later picture, seem to look out 
patiently upon a world which has been tried and 
found wanting, no longer with shy interest, but with 
a sort of experienced gravity that gives them a more 
soulful look, and the hands, brown and worn now, are 
folded in a restful attitude, as if ^'ol' Miss " were 
simply waiting for the end. 

Which is exactly what she is not doing. That is ol' 
Miss on canvas. If portrait-painters can not idealize 
their subjects, they are practically useless, for we paint 
portraits for posterity, and posterity objects, or will ob- 
ject, to crudity of any sort. 01' Miss, the living, busy, 
loving entity, only folds her hands restfuUy of evenings, 
when the last key is turned in the last lock (that is the 



on MISS. As 

poultry-yard key most likely), and the evening stars are 
twinkling over her head, as she rocks placidly in the 
cool darkness of the front gallery if it is summer, or 
knits mechanically, with her serene eyes following the 
dancing flames of the wood fire as they leap up the 
cavernous chimney in her own bedroom, if it is winter. 
There is a big parlor at Magnolia Hall, and a small 
library, and a cozy dining-room as good as a parlor, 
when the leaves are taken out of the extension table 
and it is converted into a center table, with an em- 
broidered felt cover on it ; notwithstanding all of 
which " ol' Miss's " bedroom is the family sitting-room 
in winter. In summer the sewing-machine and the 
writing desk and the book table are all located in the 
big hall, and every body sits there. 01' Miss smiles 
with triumph as one after one '' the children " gravitate 
towards her bedroom of evenings. They assign various 
false reasons for doing so. One of the boys, the one 
that is studying law, declares the lamps in mother's 
room always give a better light than his own ; another 
one of the children, whose six feet of length demands 
extra space, asserts positively that all the comfortable 
chairs in the house are in mother's room ; but no one 
agrees with her that it is her wood fire they are hanker- 
ing after. 

After the war, when labor was uncertain, the Judge 
had grates put all over the house, for the wood-pile 
was more than ever given to unaccountable fluctua- 
tions, and he hauled coal from town at great expense 
and trouble ; but when the brick masons who were 
filling up all the huge fire-places reached ol' Miss's 
room, she paralyzed them by assuming a tragic 



46 Oi: MISS. 

attitude and paraphrasing an old song for their 
benefit, or rather for the Judge's benefit, who 
looked at her over their brick-dusted shoulders in 
comical dismay. She defied them to touch a single 
brick — declaring that in youth it had warmed her and 
she'd preserve it then. She abhorred coal fires, and 
as long as there was a tree standing on the Magnolia 
place, she would have her wood fire if she had to pick 
up fagots like the old women in the Black Forest. The 
vision of ol' Miss picking up the fagot of the future to 
warm her aging bones was too much for the Judge's 
equanimity. She carried the da)^, and the chimney 
still yawns widely in her room and the wood-fire still 
crackles on the brass andirons, and the slate hearth 
with green spots in it still interposes its dark smooth 
surface between the glowing logs and all the feet that 
are left in the home circle. 

Close up against one of the jambs, by the window 
that overlooks the dairy and the henyard and the 
vegetable garden, is ol' Miss's workstand— a little 
square mahogany affair that is not independent of the 
support furnished it on two sides by the projection of 
the chimney and the wall by the window. A big Indian 
basket, toppling high with cut-out work or disabled 
wearing apparel, is its principal ornament. A fat little 
red cushion, bristling with pins and needles, cowers 
always under the eaves of the big basket, but never so 
successfully that it can not be found by every vagrant 
seeker after a pin or needle, who comes straightway 
to the workstand, sure of making good there every 
deficiency. Close by the workstand is a low armless 
rocking-chair, with a home-made cushion covered with 



on MISS. 47 

bright calico on the seat. The home-made cushion is 
a veritable cloak of charity, for underneath it is a net- 
work of seine twine that ol' Miss has criss-crossed 
recklessly through and through the failing cane bot- 
tom. It is an inviting little old chair, but no one ever 
thinks of occupying it unless the absence of ol' Miss's 
sun bonnet from the rack in the hall indicates her 
presence in the garden, the smoke-house, or elsewhere 
outdoors. Perhaps the gleam of its bright green checks 
may be traced by the line of the osage-orange hedg- 
ing, as she meditatively follows in the wake of a turkey- 
hen who, with stately deliberation and furtive caution, 
stalks slowly on the other side of the hedging, prospect- 
ing for a nest. A still more infallible indicator of ol' 
Miss's whereabouts is her key-basket. Whenever it 
joins company with the fat red pincushion, or the over- 
loaded Indian basket on the little brass-mounted stand, 
then she is at ease in the armless rocking-chair, which 
is just of the proper height to permit of her seeing if 
Butler is working that asparagus bed precisely as she 
directed him, or if Mandy is scrubbing the floor of the 
dairy with sand, instead of just ''slopping it over," or 
if Sandy is putting fresh straw in the duck's nest, and 
not pelting the young ducks with broken egg-shells, a 
favorite divertissement of vSandy's when he is quite 
sure ol' Miss's eye is not upon him from the window 
shaded by the pink crape myrtle. But, as Sandy is 
never quite sure of any thing in this world, the young 
ducks suffer no material damage at his hands, and 
sooner or later the fresh straw will be laid in the nests 
according to directions ; for, if Sandy may be said to 
have grappled successfully with a single conclusion in 



48 on MISS. 

his reckless young life, it is a conviction of the utter 
inutility of trying to evade a command of ol' Miss's. 

or Miss will manage to sandwich a good many 
stitches in between those excursive glances that she 
sends toward the garden or dairy or poultry-yard. 
Or, if the work in the Indian basket is not of a very 
pressing nature, perhaps she will read through the 
entire editorial page of last week's New Orleans 
Sunday Times, or one chapter of ' Middlemarch ' 
before her next excursion. She is like a well-drilled 
fireman or veteran in camp. The faintest intimation 
that her presence is needed finds her alert and ready 
for action ; never at a loss what to do or when to do 
it ; never seen in action without her side-arms as 
represented by her key-basket. There were enough 
keys in that basket to have started a reasonable lock- 
smith in business. Not one of them, however, could 
have been dispensed with. According to ol' Miss 
there was a moral attached to the carrying of so 
many keys, not apparent to superficial observers. 
Slack stewardship on her part would be the putting of 
temptation in the way of those not trained to resist it. 
" Her people " should never be led into temptation by 
her own neglect of duty. Her slaves were more than 
chattels to her, and among the many onerous duties 
she considered to be in her own peculiar province 
was the care of the benighted souls that inhabited 
their well-fed and well-clothed bodies. If there was 
not much system in ol' Miss's kingdom, there was an 
immense amount of activity to make up for it, and 
times and seasons could be correctly connoted b}'- a 
blind man with an ear attent to her movements. 



OV MISS. 49 

When the big smoke-house key, so big that ol' 
Miss's key-baskets were always purchased with regard 
to its mammoth proportions, was most frequently in 
requisition, the armless rocking-chair was almost de- 
serted and the nucleus of the family gatherings was 
to be found occupying a kitchen chair, with hot bricks 
under her feet, out at the smoke-house while she 
directed and supervised the labors of a score of grin- 
ning darkeys, reveling in the toothsome perquisites of 
hog-killing time. Who but herself could so nicely 
adjust the spice to the quivering mass of ''cold 
souse " before it went into the molds, or discrimi- 
nate between half a pinch more or less of powdered 
sage for the sausage-meat, or see that the sugar- 
cured hams were not saltpetered beyond redemption ? 
If you wanted to interview ol' Miss during the period 
of these rites and ceremonies, you must either bide 
your time or carry yourself and your petitions to the 
remote end of the big back yard, where in the clumsy 
house of heavy logs, which were blackened by the as- 
cending smoke of untold annual sacrifices to Epi- 
curus, she was to be found commanding, exhorting, 
entreating, upbraiding, approving, in that low slow 
voice of hers which carried with it the power of a des- 
pot's decree, with none of its harshness. 

In the spring-time, when the plum trees grew white 
with their dainty sprays of sweet-scented blossoms, 
and the peach-trees grew pink, and the blackbirds 
chatted to each other from the tasseling twigs of the 
pecans, and the dogwood shed its summer snows unno- 
ticed in untrodden by-paths of the forest, ol' Miss 
would make the garden her head-quarters, and there, 



50 oi: MISS. 

seated on the camp-chair which had such a fatal tend- 
ency to collapse suddenly under her, with her starched 
gingham sun-bonnet shutting out all of the world but 
that portion that came immediately within the radius 
of the cylindrical opening in front, with her seed-box 
by her side, and " White's Gardening for the South " 
opening of itself at "artichokes" on her lap, she 
reveled in prospective over the peas and radishes 
and pale-tinted lettuce which were to make their 
appearance on her table fully a week before Mrs. 
Westerman had any. She especially gloried in Mrs. 
Westerman's discomfiture, because Mrs. Westerman 
always insisted on having a high-priced gardener from 
New Orleans, while ol' Miss contented herself with 
Butler, between whom and herself honors were easy 
on the spring garden. 

When the year was growing mellow and the pink 
and white of orchard bloom had passed into the time 
of fruition, it was absolutely vain to look for ol' Miss 
anywhere but under the apricot-tree near the back 
door, where she camped out, as it were, and held high 
carnival among her great porcelain-lined preserving 
kettles, and her little charcoal furnace, and great 
baskets of figs, and peaches, and apples, and pears, 
and mountains of white sugar, which, through slow 
and laborious processes, were transmuted into quiver- 
ing jellies and transparent preserves that accumulated 
on the shelves of the "lock closet," until one did not 
know which to marvel at most, the possibility of their 
manufacture on such a large scale, or the probability 
of their consumption. But ol' Miss had her private 
standard of the adequate, and no inducement could 



on MISS. 51 

be offered to make her stay her Hand in preserving- 
time until the regulation number of short, fat jars of 
plum preserves, and long, lean jars of brandy peaches, 
and tumblers of quince and apple jelly had come up 
to that standard. 

On the mantelpiece in ol' Miss's bedroom stands a 
solid mahogany box that opens with little folding 
doors in the front, and a sliding panel in the back. It 
is her medicine chest, and every inch of space in it is 
crowded with little square bottles of many-colored 
mixtures, some in a liquid condition, others powdered. 
Certain of these bottles have never had the white kid 
removed from their stoppers ; others have been 
replenished over and over and over again. Those 
that have been replenished oftenest are labeled 
"Calomel," '* Quinine," '^ Ipecacuanha," and " Epsom 
Salts." She does not believe that human flesh is 
heir to any ill that will not yield to these sovereign 
remedies of hers, provided they are applied with skill 
and promptness. She is herself both skillful and 
prompt and that case, either at the " big house " or 
in the quarters, must be grave indeed if other aid 
than can be furnished by ol' Miss and her medicine 
chest be called for. Few are the cabins in the quar- 
ters that can not furnish some pleasant legend of 
visits from ol' Miss, made in the small hours of a 
winter's night or despite the fierce raging of a sum- 
mer thunder-storm. Fewer still are the cabins in the 
quarters of Magnolia Hall that have not their humor- 
ous or regretful story to tell of the times when it was 
ol' Miss's Sunday morning practice to walk up one 
side of the quarter street and down the other on a 



52 on MISS. 

mute tour of inspection, and the cabin that showed an 
unswept front, or an untidy interior, or a reckless 
disregard for that cleanliness which the mistress 
ranked next to godliness, was in a bad case so far as 
any favors in the way of " bonny clabber " from the 
big house dairy, or cabbage plants to set out in their 
truck patches from Butler's glass beds were to be 
hoped for. 

When winter put a temporary stop to all her pleas- 
ant industries and drove her in upon herself ; when 
the washouts and the guUeys in the red-clay hilly road 
between her and her neighbors put a period to all 
sociability, ol' Miss saw the carriage relegated to the 
carriage-house without a sigh. There is so much to 
do. All the winter clothes for the quarters to have cut 
out and made, and then it is a good time to catch up 
with the new books. They come out so dreadfully 
fast nowadays. The bishop always stopped at Mag- 
nolia Hall when he paid his visit to the neighborhood. 
Whether it was because ol' Miss's father was a minis- 
ter or because the Magnolia Hall table was celebrated 
for its baked turtle and its buckwheat cakes, who 
shall say ? He did not find it hard to prolong his 
visit. Some of the hollow conventionalities of city 
life might be missing, but all of life's gentle and 
genuine refinements were there, and when ol' Miss 
took her place behind the old family silver tea-set, 
dressed in her sculpturesque black, with a knot of 
purple ribbons nestling in the little cap that sur- 
mounted her soft, wavy white hair, she impressed the 
bishop, as she did every one else, with the dignity of 
her aspect and the sweet courtesy of her manners. 



OV MISS. 53 

or Miss has done but one inexplicable thing in all 
her life — inexplicable to the neighbors, that is — but 
the Recording Angel noted the deed with a smile, and 
she never regretted the act herself. It was when the 
war broke out, and she heard that Gus Richardson 
had gone to the army, and she knew that old Mrs. 
Richardson was left on the plantation alone. People 
said that it made no difference to her whether Gus 
was at home or not. She was quite daft ; had been 
ever since that unfortunate affair of Walter Richard- 
son's, her oldest son. Very few people knew the truth 
of Walter Richardson's sad ending. 01' Miss was one 
of the few, and that was the reason why she went over 
to the Richardson place and brought the old lady to 
Magnolia Hall, and dismissed the acidulous maiden 
cousin whom Gus had hired to look after his mother. 
It was a bold experiment, so bold that a woman less 
stout of heart or pure of purpose than ol' Miss would 
have hesitated long before making it. People said 
the daft old lady sometimes grew communicative, and 
prattled childishly about Walter and his affair. That 
was the reason ol' Miss thought best to keep her some- 
what excluded from her own household, while looking 
after her with the tender solicitude of a daughter. 
There was feeling almost akin to remorse in her ten- 
der heart for Walter Richardson's mother ; and yet 
why ? Was she really the wicked woman that this daft 
mother was so fond of talking to her about, clutching 
her sleeve to detain her by her side while she wandered 
far back into the past, to the days when " Walter came 
back from college, so strong and so straight, and so 
handsome, my dear ; and such a good son as he was, 



54 OL MISS. 

too, and such a happy mother as I — nowhere, nowhere. 
That was before he fell in love with that Marianne 
Holmes, who set all the men by the ears. My dear, I 
never saw her. I think I could kill her if I did, for 
she wasn't satisfied till she got my Walter in her toils, 
too, my dear — got his great warm heart to beating 
for her alone, until he forgot every thing else — me, 
his business, his ambitions, and then, when she'd made 
a fool of him, she laughed at him, and married another 
man ; and then Walter, my Walter, that came home 
to me so strong and so straight and true, went to the 
bad — to the bad — to the bad — all for a girl's false face 
— and he drank, oh, how he drank — and then — hist — 
don't whisper it, my dear ; somebody said he shot at a 
man through a window, the man he hated so badly, 
just because he had married that false-hearted girl. 
He didn't kill him — but he'didn't wait to find that out 
— he — hush — he came home and shot himself — up 
there in the blue-room. I hear him moaning there yet 
— moaning for her — the false-hearted girl who made 
a wreck of him — my Walter — my handsome Walter. 
Put your ear close and I'll whisper her name. It was 
— Marianne Holmes." That was the mad mother's 
version. 

or Miss's maiden name was Marianne Holmes, but 
all that belonged to the period of the first portrait, 
where the girl with the blue silk girdle about her waist 
and the red, red rose in her hair looks out upon an 
untried world with shy interested eyes. She regarded 
her ministrations upon Walter Richardson's mother in 
the light of an atonement, and never wearied in them ; 
but when the long-strained chord snapped at laM, and 



OL MISS. 55 

the end came, it was with a feeling like that of a dis- 
charged debtor that ol' Miss severed the last link 
between her and her dead past. 

It was only after the war that they began to call the 
mistress of Magnolia Hall " ol' Miss," to distinguish 
her from the bride, her daughter-in-law, in whose favor 
she frequently talks of abdicating. 01' Miss reigned 
before the war. Her sway was gentle but undisputed, 
and the conditions of her life serene and satisfying. 
Since that event she has pursued the uneven tenor of 
her way with a growing sense of bewilderment and 
perplexity. She finds it impossible to reconstruct her 
views on the subjects of home rule and domestic 
economy, and equally impossible to work the brand- 
new social machinery smoothly on the old principles. 
There is, to her thinking, a universal creaking and 
jarring and an awful amount of friction in it all. No 
one can convince her that time will gradually adjust 
things on a higher plane than she ever could have 
devised. " The times are out of joint," " a very 
important screw loose somewhere," and it is when the 
creaking and the friction become most apparent that 
ol' Miss repeats her threat of abdication most violently. 



CHAPTER V. 



POOR MISS MOLLIE. 



SHE is the Colonel's daughter, and was of an age to 
"receive attention" when the war broke out, 
which makes her seem a veritable antique to the girls 
who have become young ladies since that time. The 
older members of the community call her an " old- 
fashioned girl." Since but one fashion of living, look- 
ing, and thinking has held sway over the Colonel's 
daughter all these )^ears, no one resents the imputa- 
tion for her. To the younger people she is "■ poor 
Miss Mollie," about whom clusters the delightful mys- 
tery of a war romance. The more romantic fancy they 
can detect a nimbus encircling the locks that are grow- 
ing thin and gray about Miss Mollie's temples. The 
giddier among them would gladly assume her bitter- 
sweet memories for the sake of being as '^ interesting " 
as Miss Mollie is, in spite of her fading splendor and 
accumulating years. 

The Colonel's daughter is rather indifferent to than 
ignorant of the fact that she has very little in common 
with the planter's daughters who have matured since 
the war, and placidly speaks of herself as belonging to 
the '' old set," but she is very indulgent toward the 
new set, whose practical activities and reconstructed 



POOR MISS MOLLIE. 57 

notions are immense innovations on the old ways of 
doing things and perpetually evoke expressions of mild 
surprise from her. The Colonel himself sometimes 
says regretfully that he " wishes Mollie could have seen 
a little more of the world in her young days. If she had 
that congers affair would never have taken such a hold 
upon her heart and imagination." The nimbus which 
some of the girls locate above poor Miss Mollie'stuck- 
ing-comb is the outcome of " that Congers affair." 
She herself is not conscious that the conditions of her 
early girlhood had any thing undesirable in them. All 
the planters' daughters lived the same sort of lives ; 
indeed, there was no other life for them to lead — busy 
lives, full of placid industries, pure aims, quaint in- 
heritances, and simple happenings ; lives that left 
plenty of room for the play of the imagination, but 
never furnished noxious aliment for fancy. And since 
the changed conditions of every thing about her have 
in a measure forced Miss Mollie down to a more sor- 
did level, she refers tenderly to those early days as the 
'■'■ good old times." It is on the border line between 
those good old times and the new ones that the Con- 
gers affair " is located, to neither of which does it 
belong exclusively. 

Miss Mollie's horizon, both social and physical, has 
been circumscribed in the extreme. She counts it as 
a source of pride that she has lived all her life in one 
house ; occupying the same room and sleeping in the 
same spot in that room. It gives her a sense of immu- 
tability that is immensely soothing. People who have 
frittered existence away in several localities just escape 
the stigma of vagabondage in Miss Mollie's estima- 



58 POOR MISS MOLLIE. 

tion. She marvels to hear girls speak of life on the 
plantation as lonely. To her the woods that crowd 
close up about the ragged osage-orange hedge that 
defines her father's proprietary lines ; the quaint old 
garden, where cabbages and azaleas and turnips and 
violets contend for supremacy with the most demo- 
cratic equality of privilege ; the hard-beaten path that 
leads down to the little boat-house that shelters a fleet 
of battered and leaky skiffs, are all populous with 
guests who always come at her beck and never weary 
her. What if the most of them do dwell in the land of 
shadows ? They are very real to her, and she has cer- 
tain spots and seasons for holding audiences with each 
one of them. They never respond to her invitation 
with formal " regrets." 

When she looks out of her bedroom window she 
sees a triangular section of a lake, which is blue as a 
sapphire or gray as granite, according to the humor of 
the sky that smiles or frowns above it. She sees a 
mulberry tree whose trunks has accumulated many a 
ring since the time when she used to wait so impa- 
tiently for the ripening of the marrowy fruit that had 
such a fascination for her immature taste. She sees a 
crape myrtle tree that has been the undisputed domin- 
ion of many generations of mocking birds that have 
waked her up of moon-lit nights with their ecstatic 
warblings. She was small then, and the room used to 
be called the *' nursery ; " and Mammy, dear old 
Mammy, slept there with her on a pallet so close to 
her trundle-bed that if she got frightened in the night 
all she had to do was to put her hand out in the dark, 
sure of its being clasped tenderly by another hand, 



POOR MISS MOLLIE. 59 

that was black and horny and faithful. The old trun- 
dle-bed stands unmoved now under the stately four- 
poster that Miss Mollie sleeps in, except on the rare 
occasion of a child guest ; but whenever it is rolled 
into view Mammy '* materializes," and Miss Mollie 
goes back through the years to meet her, and looks up 
again into a face that was never ugly, or wrinkled, or 
expressionless to her, because it was Mammy's dear 
old face, and she feels again the hard hands carefully 
tucking the bed-clothes about her drowsy limbs, and 
she hears again the beginning of song or story droned 
out patiently by way of lullaby. She could not give 
you the "finis" of song or story. She never heard 
them in those far-away nights, when Mammy hovered 
about her until her senses were fast locked in slumber. 
When the mulberries grow black (she could reach 
them now from the nursery window, the tree has 
spread and grown so) she sees two little sticky, 
besmeared boy faces surreptitiously thrust in at that 
same window, so that Fred and Al might make sure of 
Mammy's absence before making a plunge for the 
washstand that stood in the corner. The boys 
were afraid of Mammy and Mammy was afraid of the 
mulberries. She prophesied awful things from the 
eating of them every year. There was nothing dead- 
lier in her economy of life. She had never heard then 
of Federal bullets or of Shiloh or Manassas. When 
the crape myrtle puts on its pink glory now, and the 
mocking-birds nest in its leafy branches, Miss Mollie 
peoples the nursery afresh with the boys and with 
Mammy, and who shall dare say she occupies the old 
room all alone ? 



6o POOR AIISS MOLLIE. 

She never went from home to school. Few plant- 
ers of means ever sent their daughters to boarding- 
school, unless, perhaps, to New Orleans for a year's 
finishing. The family governess was a universal 
institution and an honored member of the home circle. 
Fathers and mothers of those times and that locality 
held that the woman to whom they could be content to 
intrust the moral and mental training of their children 
must surely be worthy of the highest consideration 
from themselves, and as the governess's duties 
involved the preparation of the boys for college, her 
acquirements must be varied and solid. In a room 
up stairs, pierced by a dormer window, a room which 
has always been superlatively hot in summer and super- 
latively cold in winter, the dust gathers thick, and 
rests undisturbed on a high-colored map of the world 
hung over the long table about which she and 
" Mademoiselle " and Fred and Al used to gather in 
school hours. Here, where the ghosts of long-erased 
sums still gleam chalkily on the little blackboard, that 
was then her stumbling-block, Miss Mollie holds pleas- 
ant communion with a gentle wraith that once inhab- 
ited the body of her governess. The long table has 
come to base uses since she and the boys wrote their 
copies on it and distributed the ink impartially between 
the books, its green baize cover, and their own small 
fingers. The Colonel's wife uses it now to dry her 
yeast-cakes on, and the old school-room is still the 
scene of occasional ferment. The blackboard is hung 
about with bunches of thyme and sage and strings of 
red peppers, and has ceased to be an instrument of 
torture. The room under the roof is a sort of general- 



POOR MISS MOLLIE. 6 1 

Utility room now, but Miss Mollie never enters there 
without a consciousness of spirits entering with her. 
She was quite certain in those days that Mademoiselle 
embodied in her own small person all the wisdom 
of the ages, and she recalls now with infinite' tender- 
ness how gently she was led along the path of knowl- 
edge, perhaps at a sauntering gait which never stirred 
her to any emulous zeal ; but what of that ? Made- 
moiselle's position became something of a sinecure 
after she had fitted the boys for college, but she stayed 
on until the time came for Miss Mollie to have the 
finishing touches applied in New Orleans ; then she 
passed out of the realm of actualities into that of 
memories, where she will abide forevermore. 

It was an idyllic sort of life the Colonel's daughter 
led on the plantation after the completion of her school- 
days, with no exciting breaks in it but an annual trip 
to New Orleans, when her father went to see his com- 
mission merchants, and her mother to do the shopping, 
which was all condensed into that one excursion. 
When one's nearest neighbor is five miles off, one nat- 
urally becomes self-reliant in the matter of entertain- 
ment, and to the Colonel's daughter there could be no 
possible lack of it, so long as her little mare Fanny 
was at her command, or there remained unread a sin- 
gle book in the old-fashioned desk case at one end of 
the big hall, or there was a skiff and a pair of oars to 
ply among the lily-pads, or her " squab " house har- 
bored its multitude of *' fan-tails," " pouters," and 
" tumblers." Beaux were not among the necessities 
of life, but were regarded rather in the light of agree- 
able incidents, and on the rare occasions when a young 



62 POOR MISS MOLLIS. 

man formed one at the family table or slept in the 
spare chamber up under the roof, it was not without a 
maidenly flutter in the region of her heart that Miss 
Mollie would make the furtive addition of a flower or 
bright fibbon to her toilet, condemning herself the 
while for a silly creature. But the maidenly flutter 
was scarcely more than the startled motion of some 
shy thing unused to intrusion from the outer world, 
and the Colonel not unfrequently congratulated him- 
self that Mollie was too sensible a girl to drop into any 
fellow's mouth like an over-ripe cherry. 

Then the war came, and the zeal of Miss Mollie's 
patriotism fairly consumed her. The woolen comfort- 
ers that she crocheted, the morocco " soldiers' com- 
panions " that she contrived, the fearfully and wonder- 
fully knit socks she was responsible for, the shapeless 
shirts that she made out of her mother's parlor broc- 
atelle curtains were beyond computation. Her ideas 
on states' rights and the question of secession may 
have been slightly befogged, but she was quite clear 
on the question of her own duty in the premises, and 
that was to uphold with might and main and needle 
the side that her father and Fred and Al had espoused. 
The preparations for war seemed rather an august 
display of dignity at first, and she was quite sure noth- 
ing could be more becoming to a man than the Con- 
federate gray uniform. She really prided herself on 
the possession of two brothers so well qualified to set 
it off, and was consumed with regret that she herself 
was nothing but a useless female. Her patriotism 
rose to white heat when the Delancy Battery, fresh 
from New Orleans, encamped in the neighborhood. 



POOR MJSS MOLLIS. 6 



o 



and the atmosphere was permeated with uniforms and 
canteens. If she had ever entertained any doubt of 
the " sanctity of the cause " her father and brothers 
had espoused, every doubt vanished forever when she 
was first brought into close personal contact with the 
First Lieutenant of the Delancy Battery, whom her 
father brought home in his buggy from the camp one 
day quite ill. Those who knew best said that Lieu- 
tenant Congers had indulged recklessly in green mus- 
cadines, but the halo of romance the Colonel's daugh- 
ter promptly cast about the pallid-faced young soldier 
forbade any such gross conclusions, and no wounded 
crusader was ever nursed back to health and happiness 
with tenderer assiduity than was this sick Lieutenant 
by the Colonel's daughter. Ah ! the happy hours of 
his convalescence. Oh ! the revelations of the sweet- 
ness life may hold ! And now, when the Colonel's 
daughter saunters through the pasture when the wild 
Cherokee roses are in bloom, or catches the delicate 
fragrance of the sweet-gum afloat in the air, she is not 
companionless, for there walks by her side a something 
that has yet the power to stir her pulses to quicker vi- 
bration, and it is then that the nimbus glows brightest. 
The Delancy Battery was called to the front after 
awhile and its Lieutenant marched away with it, look- 
ing very handsome and very happy. Wonderful 
stories came back, perhaps true, perhaps not, but 
there was no room for doubt in her soul. It was then 
that she developed into a great newspaper reader. 
Not that there were many newspapers to read, but 
occasionally a copy of one printed on wall-paper, or 
a flimsy specin:en of Confederate manufacture, fur- 



64 POOR MISS MOLLIE. 

nished meager details of the doings of the army, and 
if by chance the name of the Delancy Battery figured 
in it, then it was very sure to find its way into a cer- 
tain box in Miss MolUe's top bureau drawer that al- 
ready contained a Confederate button with the Lou- 
isiana pelican on it, a torn scrap of gold lace, and a 
little pencil sketch of herself the Lieutenant had made 
one evening when she had rowed him aimlessly about 
among the lily pads. But long lapses of death-like 
silence would intervene when every thing in life was 
left to conjecture, when not a crumb of comfort was 
available from any quarter. It was then that the 
Colonel's daughter would fling herself fiercely into the 
work of weaving for the soldiers, knitting for them, 
and praying for them. The neighbors seemed to come 
closer together in those days, and every body knew 
that poor Miss Mollie w^as in a state of chronic anxiety 
about the Lieutenant, and every body shared her anx- 
iety in a qualified degree. Conventional secretiveness 
and society subterfuges concerning '' engagements " 
counted for nothing in those serious days. 

Then a day came when Miss Mollie herself, flitting 
from one plantation to the other on the back of her 
little mare Fariny, told all the girls they must help her 
to make out a trousseau, as her own wardrobe was re- 
duced to a pair of Indian moccasins that had been 
sent her from Saratoga before the war, and had orna- 
mented the parlor etagere until the exigencies of war 
times compelled Miss Mollie to wear them, and a 
basque made of bedticking and ornamented with 
black braid. Fancy a wedding trousseau manufac- 
tured with shops and milliners left out ! Such an 



POOR MISS MOl.LTE. 65 

overhauling of trunks as was never seen before, such 
donations of silk stockings and quaint old brocades 
that had been laid away in rose leaves long before 
Miss Mollie had come into the world, such a resurrec- 
tion of kid gloves that had been rolled up in blue 
starch paper to keep them from spotting, until the 
days of parties and entertainments should come again. 
What if the dresses were of antique make and obso- 
lete pattern ? they were for her wedding outfit, and 
love made good all deficiencies. 

The day and the hour came ; the Lieutenant did 
not. There was no telegraphing backward and for- 
ward in those days, no lifting of loads of anxiety on 
the pin point of an electric machine ; there was not 
even a slower-moving letter to tell Miss Mollie that 
her lover was keeping faith with her, but could not 
keep tryst. Only an awful silence, a dreary looking 
for that which never came, a settling into blank des- 
pair, which came finally as absolute relief from con- 
vulsions of hope and fear ; and then Miss Mollie took 
up the old life as well as she could, in hands that had 
grown heavy and listless. The gathered trousseau 
was locked away in two great trunks, and the first 
girl that was married at the close of the war was the 
recipient. Nothing direct ever came from the Lieu- 
tenant. Theories and rumors concerning the affair 
were numerous and varied. No one was ever able to 
discover which one of them Miss Mollie herself in- 
clined to. She seemed to have condensed all the ro- 
mance of her life into that " Congers affair," and no one 
has ever essayed to stand in the position of acknowl- 
edged lover to Miss Mollie since then. 



66 POOR Miss MOLLIE. 

She never moped visibly or railed at the other sex, 
after the fashion of disappointed women generally. 
Her interest in Confederate newspapers continued 
unabated up to the day of Lee's surrender. She fre- 
quently amuses visitors of the younger generation 
now by showing them her collection of Confederate 
souvenirs. There is the Confederate button that she 
wore on her left shoulder, to fasten the ribbon stream- 
ers there, on the day that she stood on the court- 
house steps with a lot of other girls, listening to a ter- 
rifically long speech made by the strong-minded 
woman of the parish by way of presenting the flag 
they had all worked at so fiercely to finish before the 
Redtown Rifles left for the seat of war. The sun had 
blazed down upon their bare heads on that occasion 
mercilessly, but the inward fires of patriotism had 
blazed with a nullifying ardor, and she had nothing 
but pleasant memories associated with that brass but- 
ton. There was a lot of federal note-paper captured 
at Shiloh, grown yellow now with age, at the left-hand 
corner of which were vignettes with all manner of blood- 
thirsty sentiments and threats of annihilation for the 
other side. They are very funny now. There is a 
small fortune in Confederate bills, ranging from deli- 
cate pink fractional currency up to the bluish-gray 
twenty-dollar notes, whose only value now lies in the 
fact of their being curious mementoes ; there are 
samples of cloth woven by Miss MoUie's own hands 
on the little clumsy plantation loom that has long since 
been cut up for firewood, and there is a lock of Gen- 
eral Lee's hair, and his name on a blank sheet of paper, 
which he generously forwarded her in response to a 



POOR MISS M0T.L7K. 67 

prettily worded petition for them. Miss Mollie rarely 
opens the envelope that contains these sacred me- 
mentoes without giving her listeners a graphic descrip- 
tion of the day when the news of Lee's surrender fell 
upon their stunned ears. She will go back freely and 
volubly to the beginning of the war, but always skips 
the Delancy Battery. 

She knows only theoretically of a busier, more tem- 
pestuous, more eventful life than her own. She can 
entertain her father's guests by meeting them intelli- 
gently in discussion of American or European politics 
or the state of the crops, as their own mental trend 
may suggest. She can entertain her mother's guests 
with an equally intelligent discussion of the respective 
claims of " Plymouth Rocks "over *' Brahmas." But 
her own special industry is floriculture. The names 
of Peter Henderson and Henry Vick mean more to 
her than any politician's at Washington. She is con- 
stantly getting packages of cuttiiigs and bulbs and 
new varieties of annuals. She has become quite an 
authority on roses, and the Neapolitan violets that 
grow in thick masses in the border beds of the veg- 
etable garden excel any ever grown in the forests for 
sweetness and vigor. She reads the Northern papers 
as industriously as she used to read Confederate 
papers. She knows that woman has taken a tremen- 
dous stride to the front in these latter days, and when 
she reads of them as doctors and lawyers and lectur- 
ers and advanced thinkers and talkers, it is with a sort 
of pitying horror, for, of course they must be horrid 
to look at or to come in contact with. She marvels 
at them, but does not envy them. 



^^ POOR MISS MOLLIE, 

She rarely projects a plan very far into the 
future, never further than the end of the year ; then, 
if the crop turns out well (every thing is predicated 
on that), she will ask father to fence her in a new 
flower-garden or buy her a new saddle. She is still 
a child to the Colonel and his wife, and as the condi- 
tions of her life grow more fixed every year, she will 
never be any thing else. She has never outlined a 
mission for herself, even in the wildest flights of her 
imagination. Her attitude toward the future is simply 
one of waiting. If her life has been aimless, it has 
also been spotless, and when the planter's daughter 
finally goes the way of all flesh, let some one inscribe 
for her epitaph: " Blessed are the pure in heart : 
for they shall see God." 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE MAYO BOYS. 

PEOPLE prophesied all manner of adverse things 
when it was known throughout Horseshoe Bend 
that old Judge Mayo (who lived in splendid style at 
his town place, up behind the Mississippi Bluffs, on 
the revenues drawn from the two swamp plantations 
over in Louisiana) had concluded to put his two boys 
on the two contiguous places and give them '' full 
swing." Full swing had such an excessively liberal 
sound, and plantation life offered such immense scope 
for all sorts of swings, that it quite curdled the blood 
in the veins of two dear old maiden ladies, living out 
at *' the landing," to think of those two Mayo boys 
coming straight from Harvard and settling down on 
the plantations as their own masters. " Absolutely no 
restraint, you know, and with hired overseers and a lot 
of obsequious slaves to look up to them and make 
them think they were little tin gods on wheels." 

The Mayo boys were aware of their ultimate desti- 
nation before leaving home for a four years' course at 
Harvard. The Judge had thought it best to be open 
with them, otherwise they might be planning careers 
for themselves when they got off with a lot of restless 
young fellows at the North, and as he was getting old, 



70 THE MAYO BOYS. 

he would like to see for himself, before he died, what 
sort of planters the boys would make. He felt pretty 
sure of Rafe, but Benny caused him many an anxious 
thought. Not that the boys had displayed any espe- 
cial hankering after independent careers. In fact, it 
was rather pleasant than otherwise, when the fellows 
of their mess would be discussing plans for the mak- 
ing of future livelihoods with a greater or less degree 
of anxiety, for them to descant, unboastfully, upon 
the ready-made establishments that were waiting their 
occupancy in the far-away swamps of Louisiana. This 
absence of anxiety on the " living " question did not 
tend to mental or physical inactivity on the part of the 
Mayo boys. The spur of ambition is just as keen, 
oftentimes, as the spur of necessity, and when they 
finally turned their steps Southward, with their diplo- 
mas in their trunks, the mess mourned the departure 
of its first-honor man in Rafe, and the boat-club lost 
its champion stroke-oar in Benny. 

With a large sense of independence and a small 
sense of responsibility, the Judge's sons entered upon 
the practical duties of life as planters in their own 
names. From a practical point of view it is hard to 
determine what immediate bearing a collegiate course 
had upon the duties of a planter. It was not, how- 
ever, as if they were to have the direct personal super- 
vision of matters, as in the case of Northern farmers. 
The overseer was for that ; but the financial and exec- 
utive ability to control the expenditure of a large 
plantation and maintain a general supervision of the 
welfare of several hundred souls must abide in the 
planter himself. 



THE MAYO BOYS. 7 1 

A spirit of pleasant emulation sprang up between 
the two plantations that were divided from each other 
simply by a strip of woodland that they held in com- 
mon as pasture. Rafe, as the oldest son in the family, 
occupied what had been the family residence before 
the Judge and the Judge's daughters had outgrown 
the plantation. It was quite a spacious mansion 
compared with Benny's four-room cottage, but the 
instincts of primogeniture were strong enough to 
make it seem all right to the younger son. Benny was 
ahead on the housekeeper question, for the Mammy 
who had rocked them both to sleep in the days of 
their infancy was at the head of his menage while 
Rafe had- to satisfy himself with the wife of his head 
teamster, whose light bread and spiced beef and 
hogshead cheese could never stand comparison with 
Mammy's. After the Judge had seen both the boys 
established in their own houses, had selected good 
overseers for each, and had crowned his paternal 
efforts for their success in life by giving each a buggy 
and a pair of horses, he considered he had done all 
he was called on to do, and formally emancipated 
them from leading-strings by informing them that he 
expected them to use their own judgment in the con- 
duct of their own affairs, only referring to him in 
cases of special emergency. " It was the only way to 
make men of them," the Judge declared in subsequent 
confidence to his wife. 

The world looked a spacious playground to the 
Judge's sons. What if their own particular corner of 
it was a trifle barren of interest or excitement ? There 
was always the possibility of escape on numerous lit- 



72 - THE MAYO BOYS. 

tie '' business trips " to New Orleans, which were 
pretty sure to occur about the time of the fall or 
spring races ; a few weeks at the White Sulphur or 
Old Point Comfort during the heat of summer, and 
the constant solace of a lot of fellows up from the city 
during the fishing or the snipe season. Not that they 
were going to give themselves over to the pursuit of 
pleasure. Indeed, no ; they were going to '* lay over " 
the older and slower-moving planters so far with their 
improved machinery, and their imported stock and 
what not, that Clifton, Rafe's place, and Hardscrab- 
ble, Benny's, should be regarded as the model places 
of the parish. There was an immense sensation 
involved in these first experimental days. Innovation 
by youth is always regarded as a species of imperti- 
nence by experienced old age. The Judge's boys 
had brought home a lot of new-fangled notions from 
the North that wouldn't "go down" in their own 
neighborhood without strenuous opposition. What 
use did a nigger have for a buggy-plow ? or who wanted 
his mules and horses stabbed to death on barbed-wire 
fences ? The Judge's old brindle bull had been good 
enough, who approved of the putting of as much 
money into one head of stock as those boys had flung 
away on that imported short- horn ? " Too much 
Greek and Latin and too little common-sense over at 
Clifton and Hardscrabble." The buggy-plow never 
did '' go down." It finally found rest under a big 
pecan tree in Rafe's front yard, and never served any 
nobler purpose than as a plaything for a lot of shining- 
cheeked little darkeys, who would scamper away 
incontinently at the sight of Mars' Rafe's horse turn- 



THE MAYO BOYS. 73 

ing in at the big gate, or for a roost at night for truant 
chickens who abhorred the restraint of the padlocked 
henhouse and absented themselves regularly until 
after locking-up time. 

The rivalry between the two plantations and the 
brothers was a thing that permeated every depart- 
ment of each place, and invaded every spot but their 
own hearts. There they were at one, and a word or 
an imputation cast upon either was as fiercely and 
hotly resented as if self alone had been attacked. If 
Rafe's mule-team appeared at the landing one week 
with six mules and twenty bales of cotton, Ben's 
would appear the next with eight mules and thirty 
bales. If the Hardscrabble steam press turned out 
bales weighing 550 pounds, the Clifton engineer 
would run the risk of " blowing up the whole con- 
cern " but what his bales should tip the beam at 600. 
The race as to which place should exhibit the first 
" bloom, " or send the first bale of cotton from the 
parish, or get the crop out longest before Christmas, 
was prolific of good results to both places, and served 
to render the first years of life on the plantation more 
endurable to two boys whose active young brains and 
strong young bodies bounded with all the vigor and 
ambition of early manhood. 

The industrial emulation that had divided the whole 
neighborhood into partisans worked differently on the 
differing organizations of the two Mayo boys in the 
long-run. The Judge had made the error, so common 
with parents, of prescribing the samer egimen for en- 
tirely different constitutions. The spirit of enterprise 
that had been conceived in jocularity, entered in and 



took possession of Rafe Mayo's entire being. People 
began to say there was a " good deal of come-out in 
the boy." His buggy and horses were seen less often 
waiting for him at the steamboat landing. He himself 
was seen less often whittling a bench on Gravesend's 
store gallery while he waited for the mail packet to 
land, so that he could get a Memphis or New Orleans 
paper. Bachelor parties out at Clifton, during the 
partridge or the fishing season, were heard of less 
often. When Rafe did ride into town it would be on 
a horse saddled with a plain McClellan tree, in- 
stead of the fancy English saddle, with its stamped- 
leather" splashers "he had sported so jauntily at first, 
and instead of the buttoned shoes that had excited 
such unfavorable comment from the store-gallery crit- 
ics, his trowsers-legs were stuffed into the tops of an 
honest pair of mud boots. And when finally a colored 
percale shirt-bosom was discovered between his cravat 
and waist-coat, there could no longer be a doubt that 
Rafe Mayo was settling down to business and was 
going to prove a credit to his family and to the parish. 
His name soon began to be mentioned exclusively in 
connection with short-horns and Berkshires and South- 
downs, and the dust gathered thicker and thicker on 
the books on the shelves he had filled with such pride at 
his installation. Rafe's new departure was immensely 
funny in Ben's eyes. Of course, it couldn't last. 
But he wasn't going to turn mole too, because Rafe 
had. The Mayos always had been high-livers and had 
kept an open-house. Somebody would have to sus- 
tain the credit of the family name. What was to 
hinder ? The total absence of female influence in his 



THE MAYO BOYS. 75 

home was one more barrier removed. Not that there 
were not within three or four miles of him women of 
the lovehest mental and physical type, but three or 
four miles is a long distance when the whole distance 
is one long stretch of bottomless mud ; and his mother 
and sisters were over there at the town place, glad 
enough always to see him and Rafe, but not depend- 
ent on them in any respect for comfort and happiness. 
Well if they had been. Well for the affluent young 
slave-owner, with his large independence and limitless 
authority, if something or some one had been abso- 
lutely dependent upon him for comfort and support. 
Well for him if some nobler outlet than Berkshire pigs 
or Southdown sheep had been at hand for his virile 
energy and teeming fancy to expend themselves upon. 
People began to say, '' The wild streak in the Mayo 
blood was coming out in Ben." His horses and buggy 
were 'seen far oftener waiting for him at the steam- 
boat landing. He himself was seen oftener than ever 
whittling a bench on Gravesend's store gallery, while 
he waited for the mail-packet to land, so he could run 
aboard and get one of those inimitable sherry cobblers 
that were procurable only at its bar. Why not ? 
There was nothing to do when he went back home but 
to eat dinner by himself, smoke a lonely cigar, or ride 
over to Rafe's. He couldn't always procure fellows 
to help him kill time, and as for Rafe, well, he'd taken 
to preaching of late, and that was the last feather. 
He would not\i^ preached at. Perhaps if he had seen 
any signs of deterioration of his property, it might 
have served as a wholesome check, but there was none; 
his overseer's interest in affairs was too well-grounded 



7 6 THE MAYO BOYS. 

for that. People said : " It was a pity. Ben Mayo was 
such a noble fellow, so absolutely incapable of a mean- 
ness or a lie. Apt to go off at half-cock, but as quick 
to apologize for a mistake as to resent an injury." 
Rafe confessed, confidentially to his father, that he 
feared Ben was getting into a snarl with his commis- 
sion merchants, but the Judge was a Brutus-like per- 
sonage, who preferred letting his son sow and reap 
his crop of wild oats without let or hindrance from 
him. 

It was when the secession excitement was at white 
heat, and the spirit of recklessness pervaded the air, 
that Ben made his last trip to New Orleans. He was 
a well-known and always a welcome figure on the deck 
or in the great brilliant saloon where, when the supper 
tables had been cleared away and the colored cloths 
were put back on the round tables, cards were in order. 
The ladies, far back in the luxurious cabin over the 
stern, might see four heads clustered about a table, 
but no sound or exclamation floated to them to shock 
or anger their sense of the proprieties. Nothing but 
gentlemen-players playing for recreation, as the boat 
m.ade her deliberate way from landing to landing, pick- 
ing up a bale of cotton here, a passenger there, a sack 
or two of seed in another place, leaving her living 
freight to beguile itself as best it might for three or 
four days and nights. 

No one ever knew just exactly what happened at the 
card-table. Ben Mayo made one at it on that trip, but 
the spirit of recklessness that pervaded the air must 
have been in his breast to excess, for he was losing, 
find as tlie code forbids any man to draw out of the 



THE MAYO BOYS. 77 

game while he is winning, unless by consent of the 
loser, he played on and on until every man had dropped 
away from the table, excepting the one who could not 
stop and the one who would not ; on and on until the 
lamps in the long cabin had all been turned down to 
the lowest notch save those immediately over bistable ; 
on and on until the spectators dropped away yawning 
to their stateroom, and there was no one left in 
sight but a sleepy officer nodding over the big stove 
at one end of the social hall, and a cabin-boy, alert for 
orders from the players, who were oblivious of every 
thing but the mad stake they were playing for. The 
end came at last. There was no sound to indicate it 
to the sleepy officer by the stove or to the cabin-boy 
alert for fees. Only a gleam of triumph in one pair of 
eyes — only a sort of spasmodic contraction about Ben 
Mayo's lips. Then he got up, very white in the face 
but firm of step, went to the clerk's office, wrote a few 
lines, came back to the table, handed it to his oppo- 
nent with a silent bow, and went off to his stateroom 
to sleep off, temporarily, the reflection that Hardscrab- 
ble was no longer his property, nor had he any more 
right in any of its appurtenances. It was a trifle hard 
to be cabined with the new owner of Hardscrabble for 
another day and night ; but the river was low, and the 
boat was slow, and — fortunately — they were both gen- 
tlemen, so no one on board was any the wiser for the 
transaction. If Ben Mayo suffered for his reckless- 
ness, he was plucky enough to hide it admirably, and, 
indeed, spent more time than usual the next day back 
in the ladies' cabin, where his opponent's wife and 
daughters were- 



7^ THE AfAYO BOYS. 

It wasn't easy to tell Rafe about it when he went 
back home. But he did it without flinching, and to 
Rafe's natural question, " What are you going to do ?" 
he simply answered, " I don't know ; give me time to 
pull myself together." It wasn't easy to tell his peo- 
ple that they all belonged to another man and were to 
pass from under his good-natured sway into untried 
hands. There were a lot of the family hands on his 
place, and he knew '' they'd howi " at the idea of call- 
ing anybody but a Mayo master. He didn't intend to 
try to tell the Judge until he had pulled himself to- 
gether. He'd been an awful fool, and there was no 
getting around that. He didn't try to exculpate 
himself. 

Just then the thunder of Sumter's guns reverberated 
throughout the land, and the demand for volunteers was 
hailed by one of the Mayo boys with a sense of relief. 
Now he knew what he was going to do. At last he 
could answer Rafe's question. He went out as a pri- 
vate in the first company that left the parish, and left 
the telling of his reckless play to Rafe. Went with an 
outfit slightly incongruous with his position as a pri- 
vate in a company of infantry, taking with him Bob, 
who had been his body-servant since the day of his 
return from Harvard, and who had been excepted 
from the calamity that overtook the rest of his people. 
It never occurred to Bob that Mars' Ben's silver boot- 
hooks and suspender buckles would be slightly out of 
place in camp ; nor that his splendid hookah had bet- 
ter be left behind ; in consequence of all which Bob 
ignorantly secured for his beloved master the soubri- 
quet of Fancy Mayo. No one ever called him so when 



THE MAYO BOYS. 79 

he could hear it, for there was a dangerous gleam in 
Private Mayo's eyes that precluded trifling. How he 
lived down the sneers his silver boot-hooks and other 
costly accessories involved him in, how he came to be 
spoken of as '' one of the noblest fellows that ever 
lived," how he made his mark the first time Company 
C went into action, used to be told with many varia- 
tions about many camp-fires. But Bob's story, as he 
told it simply and tearfully when he went back home 
alone, is the accepted one in the Mayo family. Bob 
shall tell it this once more : 

" He needn't a-died at all. Mars' Benny needn't, but 
it was a choice 'twix' him and de odder one. Our folks 
was runnin'. Dey was 'bleege' t'run. Dey b'en 
fightin' and fallin' back all day. Dey was jis' nat'rally 
gin out. I hed catch a calv'ry horse and brung him to 
whar' Mars' Benny wuz tryin' to help a wounded sol- 
dier on to his feet. He were one uv our men, but he 
did'n' even b'long to our company. I sez, sorter hur- 
ried like, ' Git in de saddle. Mars' Benny, and we kin 
bofe git away. I'll ride behin' you.' Stidder that, he 
look at me sorter commandin' lak an' say, ' Bob, help 
me to put this man in the saddle, and you hold him on 
the horse and gallop for dear life,' ' But how 'bout 
you ? ' I sez. He jes' roar at me — ' Do what I tell 
you ! ' an' I done it. The hurt soldier was swooned 
an' did'n' know who was handlin' him. I heard Mars' 
Benny say under his bref lak, ' He's got a wife and 
daughter to mourn for him — I have not.' I galloped 
away wid dat strange man in front o' me, but my heart 
was achin' for Mars' Benny. I went back nex' day 
an' foun' him. He looked mighty white an' peaceful 



8o THE MA VO BO YS. 

like as if he heerd de angels whisperin' t' him, 'Well 
done, thou good and faithful servant,' but he never 
open his han'sum e)^es no more." 

The man whom Benny Mayo had put on the horse 
in front of Bob was the new owner of Hardscrabble. 
The deed to the place had not been made out legally 
before the war put a stop to all business, and his death 
would have absolved Ben from his debt of honor. But 
it was not in him to seek escape by such quibbling 
with life or death. He had his own code. He 
lived and died by it. If every man really is the 
result of the sum of his ancestors, plus his own en- 
vironment, who shall say the result in Ben Mayo's 
case was — ? 



CHAPTER VII. 



UNCLE LIGE. 



IF it is true that in the beginning of his career Uncle 
Lige had greatness of a superficial sort thrust upon 
him, it is no less true that in later years he achieved 
it in that solid form which comes from the unconscious 
exercise of heroism under circumstances calculated to 
try the mettle of men of far higher mental and moral 
culture than he could ever claim. 

In these later years, if it should be put to the vote 
which could best be dispensed with on the Caruthers 
place, one of the many brick pillars on which the "big 
house" is supported, as on stilts, or Uncle Lige, who 
is, in his way, a very important support too, it would 
perhaps result in a tie. In point of seniority he ante- 
dates every member of the white family with whose 
fortunes his own are inextricably mixed up. He is 
emphatically " the old man " to them, and they are 
one and all " children " to him. The tie that binds 
them together is founded in mutual respect and affec- 
tion. They have a community of interest in the 
present, and the pleasant as well as sorrowful memo- 
ries of the past they hold in common ; whatever of 
good may be hidden in the future it is safe to predict 
will be shared impartially. Neither side would will- 
ingly have it otherwise. 



82 UNCLE LICE. 

The date of Uncle Lige's birth is lost in the fogs of 
remote ages. Even the exigent questioning of the 
census-taker has never extracted any thing more defi- 
nite from him than that he '' was here w'en de stars 
fell." This system of chronology is simple and orig- 
inal. The earlier events of his life all occurred either 
before or after the year the stars fell ; later ones, 
before or after General Jackson died. Whosoever 
insists upon greater accuracy on Uncle Lige's part is 
set down by him as being " onreasonable an' exactin'." 
His stock of superstitions is large and indestructible, 
and as long as he remains the autocrat he is on the 
Caruthers place, no cattle will ever be branded on the 
wane of the moon, or any potatoes be planted on its 
increase, and Friday will never witness the beginning 
of an undertaking. 

Uncle Lige's immediate connection with the white 
family dates from the day of his accidental promotion 
from the position of head teamster on the plantation 
to that of family coachman, the most dignified posi- 
tion attainable by any body in his sphere of life. He 
never wearies of detailing the circumstances of his 
promotion, and his sense of morality is nowise shocked 
that his own rise was in consequence of a fellow-mor- 
tal's fall. If any casuist draws his attention to this 
point. Uncle Lige dismisses it with an airy declaration 
that '' ev'y tub mus' stan' on its own bott'm." The 
story of his transplanting from the quarters to be 
" yard folks " he tells with a chuckling prelude that 
never failed to arouse " French John " (his supplanted 
rival) to the highest pitch of frenzy. Since death has 
closed French John's ears, and terminated a long and 



UNCLE LIGE. 83 

rancorous feud between him and Uncle Lige, the old 
man tells the story less often and with less gusto. 
There are still some of the " chillun " young enough 
to extract amusement from the oft-told tale, the more 
especially as it deals with the mystical period when 
the grandfather, who is only a memory and a portrait 
now, and the grandmother, who is a delicate, fading 
reality, were young and romantic. How queer to 
associate the idea of youth and romance with that 
slight, feeble form, those faded, sunken eyes, and the 
delicate, blue-veined temples, about which two pretty 
little curls of snow-white hair droop, all of which go 
to make up " Grandma " ! 

Uncle Lige craves one more hearing : 

*' H'it all hap'n befo' Genul Jacksin die. It was 
'bout de time dat Mars' John 'elude it wor'n' good fur 
man t' be 'lone, en 'elude to 'bey de Scripture 'junc- 
shun, en' go down de coas' to fetch him up a wife. 
But befo' he wen' he sot he's house in order, so to 
speak. He'd ben livin' to heseff in de log cabin his 
pa put up w'en he fus' cl'ared de place, but no wife er 
his'n wor'n gwine to be put down in dat little low-roof 
log-house 'hind de cotton-wood trees ; so Mars' John, 
he sends all de way to Cincinnater fur de framework uv 
dis big house, en sech a sawin' en hammerin', en gar- 
denin', en puttin' up uv hen-houses, en layin' down of 
brick walks, en pickin' out of yard folks from de fiel' 
ban's ! But Lige wor'n 'mongst 'em, no, sirs. Lige 
hed to Stan' off en' look at h'it allwid his finger in he's 
mouf. Den de crownin' glory come, in a new ker- 
ridge en' p'ar from Orleens. I ain' gwine tell no lie 
'bout it, dis nigger's fingers did fa'rly itch t' git hoi* uv 



84 UNCLE LIGE. 

dem spankin' bob-tail mar's. But Mars' John didn' 
have no use for a flat-noSe, pock-mark, squatty nigger 
lak me, dt'/i. I wuz good 'nough to drive he's mule 
team t' de landin', arter a load er freight, or t' haul 
his cott'n crop t' town, but not t' set up on dat ker- 
ridge-box en drive he's wife. No, sirs. He done 
bought a driver same time he bought de kerridge en' 
de mar's. A gemmun ob color he wuz, he wor'n' no 
nigger. A black monkey I called him, wi' his ha'r 
smellin' of grease, en his dandy ways, en all dat. 
En' I larfe to myself to think er dat boy tryin' to 
manage dem skittish bob-tails, as dey prance over de 
bridges and crost de bayers en froo dese woods er 
ourn. Well, sirs, de da}^ done come w'en Mars' John 
was t' git home wid he's new wife. French John had 
he's orders to be at de landin' wid de horses en kerridge, 
en' I hed mine to be dar wid de mule-team to fotch out 
de baggidge. Well, sirs, we wuz dar, French John wid 
de new kerridge en me wid de fo'-mule wagin. I tuk 
Sam Baker 'long t' help wid de trunks. De boat was 
late. Boats mos' generally is late w'en you's waitin' 
fur 'em. Mr. Creole Nigger he strut 'bout dar showin' 
off in Mars' John's las' winter overcoat en a new hat, 
a crackin' uv his bran' new kerridge whip lak Fofe uv 
July firecrackers at fus', but come presen'ly, I sees 
Mr. Creo' slippin' crost de levee to Mack Williams's 
sto'. I sez to myseff, go it, nigger ; ef you knowed es 
much 'bout Mack Williams's whisky as dis nigger 
does, you'd be mighty shy of techin' it w'en you got 
t' drive w'ite folks home in de dark wid de mud 'bout 
axle deep. But it wor'n none er my lookout. I wor'n' 
put dar t' keep French John straight, and I allers were 



UNCLE LIGE. 85 

principled 'gainst meddlin' wid w'at wor'n none er my 
biziness. ' My brudder ! ' En I should a ben he's 
keeper ! No, sirs; French John wor'n' none er my 
brudder. I didn' come from no sech slock, / tell you. 
Well, de long en de short of it wuz, de boat done 
come finally, en I see Mars' John a steppin' crost de 
gang-plank wid he's head high up in de a'r, en a han- 
gin' to he's arm de purties' sort uv a lady (I tell you 
ol' Miss were a stunner in her young days), en' French 
John, yere he come, jus' a cavortin' crost de levee 
mekin' dem skittish mar's jump ev'y foot uv de way t' 
de chune of dat crackin' whip. Mars' John he gin 
'im one black look, den he call out, sorter loud like, 
' Is Lige Rankin here ? ' Lige were thar sho'es you is 
bo'n; en' he say, ' Git up on dat box en tak dem reins.' 
Lige didn' need no secon' axin'. I was dar, en' I hed 
dem reins in my hands fo' Mr, Creo' knew wa't hu't 
him. French John he went home layin' in a heap on 
top a bale er baggin' in de fo' mule wagin. En Lige 
Rankin, well, he done hoi' dem reins frum dat day to 
dis. But w'at de use er goin' so fur back ? All dat 
happin' fo' Genul Jacksin die." 

The carriage that brought the bride home on that 
memorable occasion is a wreck and a relic now. It has 
stood motionless in one corner of the carriage-house 
while the dust of years accumulated on its cracked and 
wrinkled curtains. It is the favorite retreat of an 
ancient Dominick hen, who lays her eggs under the 
back seat and broods over them periodically in peace- 
ful immunity from fresh-egg fiends ; but it is a sacred 
relic in Uncle Lige's estimation, and no vehicle will 
ever be just the same to him. The bride he brought 



86 UNCLE LIGE. 

home in triumph then sits in the easiest chair in the 
warmest nook by the fireside in winter, or the shadiest 
spot on the gallery in the summer, and the young men 
and maidens of the household do reverence to her 
years and her virtues. To Uncle Lige she is some- 
thing only a little lower than the angels, for to her 
gentle sway he owes the many additional accomplish- 
ments that became his after he was enrolled among 
the yard-folks. 

01' Miss was the making of him, he candidly admits. 
As the Caruthers place, with its isolation from its 
neighbors and its environment of mud, did not offer 
temptations for the idle luxury of a daily drive, the 
carriage and horses were kept as conveyances, and in 
the long intervals of their appearance at the front 
door, up to which Uncle Lige delighted in driving 
with as broad a sweep as the front yard would permit 
of, his duties apart from driving were well defined 
and numerous. The large garden, where vegetables 
and flowers flourished amicably side by side, was his 
to work by day and to guard by night. Set into one 
side of the tall picket-fence was a tiny cabin of one 
room and a lean-to that goes by the name of the 
gardener's house. Within, its walls are hung thick 
with bags of seeds of the watermelons, cantaloupes, 
lima beans, and innumerable other esculents of his 
own preservation, for Uncle Lige has slight faith in 
" sto' seed." The whitewashed joists are gay with 
strings of red pepper, garlands of okra pods, and the 
bright yellow balsam apple, whose curative qualities 
when steeped in whisky are sure and far-famed. 
Many a quart of whisky finds its way into Uncle 



UNCLE LIGE. 87 

Lige's locker, brought hither by the recipient of cut 
or burn or bruise, who craves the balsam of which 
Uncle Lige always has good store in exchange for the 
fiery liquid the old man craves. The shed in front of 
the gardener's house is wreathed about with a rich 
climbing rose that would grace a palace, but it is a 
thing of small account in the old man's eyes. 01' 
Miss, in his estimation, wastes much good ground and 
time, too, in the cultivation of her roses, and jessa- 
mines, and violets, and lady slippers, and dahlias, and 
tuberoses. It had much better be put in pindars or 
rutabagas ; but, though neither the beauty nor the 
sweetness of the flowers appeals to any of his senses, 
it is her wish to have them, and it would go hard with 
Lige before they should suffer neglect at his hands. 
Seen by the moonlight, or yet more vaguely by the 
glimmer of the distant stars, the long spacious garden 
over which Uncle Lige reigns supreme is a peaceful 
and pretty object, with its neat squares of erect cab- 
bages, bordered with bright-hued zinnias, its feathery- 
topped carrot bed, tipped at the edges with glowing 
gladioli, its green tangled masses of watermelon 
vines, hiding not only the dark glossy fruit so dear to 
the universal palate, but deadly spring guns which 
Uncle Lige has placed judiciously and so arranged by 
a system of telegraphic strings running into, his cabin 
floor that the soundest sleep he is capable of falling 
into will be shattered at the first marauding footfall. 
None of the white family lay any claim to the garden 
or its fruitage. It is emphatically Uncle Lige's gar- 
den, and visitors to the big house must always pay it 
their meed of admiration under his personal super- 



88 UNCLE LIGE. 

vision. He is conscious that it stands unrivaled in 
all the country-side, and is, not averse to being told so 
over and over again. Of rainy days the children used 
to love to scamper from the big house across the wet 
garden, where the rain-laden jessamines flung their 
heavy perfume on the air, to Uncle Lige's cabin to 
" watch him." He was never known to be idle. There 
was the grindstone under the rose-wreathed shed that 
some of them might turn while he sharpened his ax, 
or there was harness-mending going on, or the bright 
speckled beans to be separated each after its kind, 
or the hoes to be filed to a fine edge, or the rake 
to be retoothed, or greatest fun of all, a lesson to be 
taught Uncle Lige. 

Of all the '' chillun " who were dear to his heart 
there was one dearer than all. She is a woman now, 
a tall, stately, serious woman, one who has known 
grief ; but in those peaceful days long before the war, 
w^hen the tie between the big house and Uncle Lige's 
cabin seemed wrought of conditions that could never 
know change nor weakening, she was a blue-eyed, 
yellow-haired child, who used to ride over to the 
Denny place to school every morning behind Uncle 
Lige on his " calico " pony " Slouch." She can remem- 
ber to this day how ridgy Slouch's back was in spite 
of an immense amount of padding, and how completely 
the familiar landscape was blotted from view by Uncle 
Lige's broad back and her own protruding sun-bonnet ; 
but he was the most indulgent of carriers, and many 
a stoppage would be made between home and the 
Denny place, when she would be left trembling alone 
in awful isolation on Slouch's back^ while Uncle Lige 



UNCLE LIGE. 89 

dismounted to gather an armful of the sweet-smelling 
creamy lace tufts of elder-blossom, or a bunch of pale 
blue-bells from the side of the levee, or the first glossy 
dewberries that gleamed ripely from under their bridal 
wreaths of blossoms. That was after the boys went 
away to school, and she was too tiny to have a gov- 
erness all to herself. And then, when they rode back 
through the fields at dinner-time, how conscientiously 
she gave her faithful carrier at second-hand all the 
lore she had accumulated through the morning hours. 
It was she who of rainy days, perched in the best 
chair in Uncle Lige's cabin, with her " McGuffey " 
stretched open in her lap to bring it on a level with 
the old man's wrinkled face, as he sat humbly on the 
lintel of his own door, with his huge feet resting on 
the cypress block that answered him for a doorstep, 
tried so very hard to teach him how to read for him- 
self, and fastened her big blue eyes on him with such 
despairing pity when he finally closed the book himself 
in absolute resignation of the etfort, with the pathetic 
declaration : " 'Tain't no use, honey. It's hard teachin' 
ol* dogs new tricks. I'se a ol' dog, en book I'arnin's 
a mouty hard trick. You jes' read a story oncet-a- 
w'ile to de ol' man, en I reckon dat'U be 'bout all he 
kin tek in." And so it had ended ; and what if he 
did oftener than not fall asleep just as she got to the 
most exciting part of the story ? He was tired, and 
sitting still had a soporific effect upon him. So she 
would close the book softly, and sit looking out at the 
great raindrops standing on the thick cabbage leaves, 
or weighting down the crimson salvias, waiting for 
the old man to start apologetically from his "forty 



90 UNCLE LIGE. 

winks," and carry her back across the drenched gar- 
den to the big house, perched aloft on his honest 
shoulders. 

It was to Uncle Lige the boys came for instruction 
in rowing, and riding, and gunning. It was he who 
taught them the rhythm of the oars and the dexterous 
art of " feathering " that sent the clear water of the 
lake rippling away in fairy rings from the shining 
blades ; it was he who " broke " their ponies for 
them and plodded patiently at their heads until they 
grew ashamed of his protection ; it was the prowess 
of his gun that kept the family table supplied with 
ducks, and snipe, and partridges, and made the boys 
his eager pupils and his envious admirers. But the 
day came when the boys rode away from the big house, 
leaving behind them their ponies, with other childish 
things ; when the yellow curls and the blue eyes of 
the child who tried in vain to inoculate him with buds 
from the tree of knowledge, were seen less seldom in 
the cabin in the garden ; for days of anxious watching 
and tumultuous effort had come to the women of the 
land, who had sent away from them all who were 
strong enough of heart and hand to do a patriot's 
part. It was then that Uncle Lige's executive ability 
and loyal affection for his " wite folks " had full and 
vigorous play. 

*' Take care of your mistress and my daughter, old 
man," the master had said, wringing old Lige's hand, 
as he too, when the fight waxed hotter and thicker, 
went off to the front. How proudly the old man's 
heart swelled within him when the mistress, w^iom he 
regarded only as a trifle lower than the angels, turned 



UNCLE LICE. 91 

to him for advice at almost every juncture. How 
eagerly he spent himself that the comforts his "w'ite 
folks " were accustomed to should not fail them 
through any mismanagement or neglect on his part. 
And when grim gunboats began to sentinel the river, 
putting a period to all communication with the master 
and the boys, and gradually drawing the cordon still 
closer, until the necessities of life grew few and hard 
to procure, it was Uncle Lige, who, loading a skiff 
with sweet potatoes and pecans, and paddling softly 
out into the river, under cover of thick darkness, came 
back with a wondrous supply of tea and coffee that his 
'Sv'ite folks " consumed with a guilty sensation of dis- 
loyalty, but with a relish born of a nauseous experience 
of burned okra coffee and sassafras tea. 

Uncle Lige was never absent from the yard about 
the big house during the entire period of his adminis- 
tration but once besides this ; then it was for four 
days and nights. It was a notable journey, and has 
been embodied among his reminiscent narratives. It 
was no desertion of the post of duty ; it was, on the 
contrary, the taking on of a graver responsibility for 
the sake of the " young miss " who ranked next in his 
affections to the master's wife, "ol' Miss." 

The blue eyes he had watched from the cradle were 
growing faded from excessive weeping, the springing 
step he had found it hard to keep pace with in brighter 
days was growing heavy and listless. " Missy was 
pinin'." He knew well what for. There had gone 
away from her one even dearer than father or brother. 
Lige knew of the rumors that had floated to the big 
house concerning him. He was sick. He was in 



92 UNCLE LIGE. 

hospital at Vicksburg. The old man conceived an 
heroic resolve. Perhaps he could get him home. 
Then the light would come back to his '' dear chile's " 
eyes and the elasticity to her step. It was hard to go 
away without telling " ol' Miss," but if he should fail 
it would be worse than ever. For a little while they 
must think what they would of him. They did think 
unspeakable things of him. " Lige had gone over to 
the enemy ! " Who then could be relied on ? There 
was no special discomfort entailed by his disappear- 
ance. He had seen to all that, and a son of his own 
loins assumed his duties p7'o tern. But no one could 
supply Lige's place. The mistress marveled and 
moaned ; the girl for whose sake he was consenting 
to be cruelly misunderstood for a little while, waxed 
wordy in her indignation, and said in her haste he was 
a traitor. How harshly all her hot words came back 
to her when one evening, as she paced the long gallery 
of the big house, watching with listless gaze the sun 
set in a blaze of purple and gold, wondering bitterly in 
her sore heart why men must fight and women must 
weep, the wooden latch of the front gate was lifted by 
a quick hand, and there, coming up the walk, leaning 
heavily on old Lige's arm, was the one of all others in 
the wide world she most yearned to see. She was 
down the steps and by his side in a second, wondering, 
laughing, crying, the light already back in her eyes 
and the buoyancy of her heart communicating itself 
to her step. 

" I fotch him. Missy," was all old Lige said at that 
moment, but later on he told them how he had traveled 
by night in his staunch and well-provisioned little 



UNCLE LIGE. 93 

skiff, lying by in wooded coves by day, eluding pursuit, 
laboring untiringly, encouraging the sick and heartsore 
boy, who lay in the boat on his heap of blankets ; reap- 
ing his reward beforehand in the reflection that he was 
carrying peace and joy back to his '' dear chile," and 
that '' ol' Miss " herself would approve of his course of 
conduct. 

But all that was since " Genul Jacksin " died, and 
although Lige's days of active service are well-nigh 
over, the cabin with the climbing roses is still his own, 
and if he does not wield the shovel and the hoe as 
vigorously in the garden beds it overlooks, nor drive 
the family carriage with as lofty an assumption of dig- 
nity, his sway is just as autocratic and his worth as 
highly rated as on the day when he supplanted French 
John. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

MRS. NEW AND THE OLD FAMILIES. 

WHEN Mrs. New looked through her open front 
door, across the flower-beds that cluster on both 
sides the raised brick walk that leads from her front 
gate to her front steps, and saw Major Morris's son 
helping her daughter Elmira into his handsome new 
center-board sailboat, with a view to escorting her 
across the lake to an entertainment to be given by his 
own mother, Mrs. Major Morris, she was consciously 
filled with that sort of pride that a conqueror feels at 
the successful termination of a long and doubtful cam- 
paign. And when young Morris, with the tiller ropes 
in one hand, gayly waved her, with the other, the as- 
surance that Elmira was all right, Mrs. New medita- 
tively bit off the end of the thread she had been ab- 
stractedly aiming at the point of her needle for some 
seconds in a pretense of indifference to their move- 
ments, said " At last " softly to herself, and went back 
indoors in an unusually placid frame of mind. Mr- 
New's pointer, " Mingo," exempt from active duty on 
the score of old age, was the beneficiary of her over- 
flowing good-will on this occasion, and with canine 
astuteness saw with his one purblind eye that it was 
not necessary for him to vacate the sitting-room hearth- 



MRS. NEW AND THE OLD FAMILIES. 95 

rug with his usual precipitancy. Not that Mrs. New 
does not consider her daughter Elmira handsome 
enough, and refined enough, and bright enough, to 
have all the young men and all the center-board sail- 
boats in the country at her disposal, and she (Mrs. 
New) is glad that the fact of Major Morris's own son 
coming for her has not the significance for Elmira that 
it has for herself. Elmira knows nothing of the silent 
warfare her mother engaged in long before her birth 
and sees no special occasion of triumph in the fact of 
young Morris's gallant attentions. 

The Morrises are the very oldest people in the 
county. No one can remember when a Morris did not 
plant the " Shallows " place just across the lake from 
'' Big a-plenty," the News' place. Local tradition had 
it that the first Morris employed Indians to pick his 
cotton seed from the lint, and that two pounds an 
evening was an adult's task, all of which had an impos- 
ingly -antique sound, and carried the Morrises way 
back yonder beyond Whitney's great invention of the 
cotton gin. No greater proof of respectability could 
be asked or given ; whereas the News only went back 
a very little way, and over debatable ground at that. 
Mr. New's father, Elmira's grandfather, had been an 
overseer, and only became a landholder through the 
misfortunes or misdeeds of his own employer ; conse- 
quently he had always been regarded in the light of a 
pretender, and it would have taken more than two 
generations, under normal conditions, to wipe out the 
stigma of overseer origin from the name of New. The 
overseer was a sort of middleman between the master 
and slave, and was regarded rather as a necessary 



9^ MNS. NlilV AND THE OLD FAMILIES. 

evil than as a social element. The planter stood to 
his slaves as a sort of higher tribunal, to which appeal 
could always be carried from this official, whose decis- 
ions were oftener guided by expediency than by any 
sense of abstract justice. Self-reliance, physical 
strength, and common-sense being the only essentials 
in the selection of an overseer, one was seldom found 
in the ranks of the refined or the educated. Socially 
he was an outcast. If India's test of caste had been 
applied, the overseer would have been considered a 
pariah. But fortunately the irrevocability of Brahmin 
regulations did not hold good, else Mrs. New would 
never have had the satisfaction of seeing her daughter 
Elmira handed into a sailboat by Major Morris's son 
Harry, and he a Yale graduate at that. 

Mrs. New has no harrowing memories of the war, 
but on the contrary, secretly regards herself as the 
proverbial beneficiary of an ill-wind. Not having any 
sons to be killed, there are no vacant chairs or name- 
less mounds somewhere to counterbalance her satis- 
faction in the fact that if the war did not lift her to 
Mrs. Major Morris's level, it brought Mrs. Morris 
down to hers. Before the war, if Mrs. New got on a 
steamboat to go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, 
although she might obtain the " pick "of the staterooms 
and occupy a seat at the Captain's table (which was 
tantamount to sitting above the salt in feudal days) 
and be proudly conscious that on the decks under her 
feet were a hundred bales of cotton that Mr. New had 
shipped to his merchants, the biggest single shipment 
made from the county, there was still an aching void 
to be filled, especially if the Colonel's wife or Mrs. 



MRS. NEW AND THE OLD FAMILIES. 97 

Major Morris chanced to be going to Mardi Gras on 
the same boat. For Mrs. New was too astute an 
observer not to feel the distinction between the cour- 
tesy bestowed upon herself by the Captain and the 
*' lady's clerk," and the fat consequential colored stew- 
ardess of the boat, and that reserved for the old fami- 
lies exclusively. Since the war, however, things have 
changed on the boats as elsewhere, and as the older 
families themselves have developed more practical or 
more democratic tendencies, the lines of demarka- 
tion are not so sharply drawn by those time-serving 
officials. 

Before the war the fact that Mrs. New " ran a mar- 
ket-cart" counted among her disqualifications for polite 
society, although quite legitimate for her (antecedents 
understood). Not but that in the absence of markets 
and greenrgrocers in the town, the semi-weekly appear- 
ance of Mrs. New's ancient blue cart, drawn by its 
ancient brown mule, harness-scarred and knock-kneed, 
driven by its ancient black marketman, " Uncle Mer- 
rick," with his brilliant carpet cap surmounting his 
gray wool, was a beneficent institution and a refresh- 
ing sight. For where else were such golden pounds 
of butter,printed with a big thistle and wrapped in snowy 
muslin, to be procured? Where else could the freshness 
of the creamy Bramah and the speckled guinea eggs 
(delight of epicurean palates) be relied upon so abso- 
lutely ? Who else ever sent such fat pullets, such 
crisp celery, such marrowy asparagus, such luscious 
strawberries, from door to door in a steady supply of 
creature comfort ? Old Merrick generally marked the 
stoppage at his regular customer's door with a big 



9^ MliS. NEW AND THE OLD FAMILIES, 

bunch of roses or violets sent with " Missis's compli- 
ments," which was one of Mrs. New's subtle efforts at 
lifting her market-cart out of a purely mercenary rut. 
Since the war the Colonel's wife and Mrs. Major Mor- 
ris also run market-carts, and Mrs. New is quite will- 
ing to divide the profits for the sake of dividing other 
things (odium, for instance), and she sends her supple- 
mentary roses and violets now more as " lagniappe " 
than as propitiatory offerings. Circumstances alter 
cases. 

Before the war it had been whispered about that in 
the busy season, that is, when the cotton crop was 
ready to be picked out, Mrs. New had given the crown- 
ing evidence of avarice in turning all her yard force, 
except her milk-woman, into the fields, and had done 
all her own work for weeks, claiming for pin-money all 
the cotton picked by her " house hands," which, ot 
course, was rather praiseworthy, seeing the cotton 
would otherwise have been wasted ; but the voluntary 
surrender of a cook, and a washwoman, and a gar- 
defier, and a dining-room boy, and a house girl, and a 
poultry-tender, and a dairy-maid, displayed as much of 
the mercenary spirit as it did of personal endurance- 
Some people could do such things profitably. Others 
would lose more, in a variety of ways, than the accru- 
ing pin-money would compensate for. Since the war 
almost any honest measure for keeping the wolf at a 
distance was not only legitimate, but laudable, and so 
one more stain was wiped from Mrs. New's 'scutcheon, 
for inconsistent as humanity is, it does not rail at peo- 
ple fordoing what it does itself — at least, not always. 
Not that Mrs. New has ever conspicuously or even 



MRS. NEW AND THE OLD FAMILIES. 99 

visibly gloried iii these signs of regeneration on the 
part of her nei^'hbors ; she has simply been glad, that 
was all, that her own attitude has become Itss peculiar. 
Yes, after all, the war did a good deal for Mrs. 
New ; it showed her the road to some of her neigh- 
bors' hearts, and she was not slow to follow it. It 
was then that women, thrown back upon themselves 
and each other, began to place a truer estimate on 
some of the frivolities as well as some of the solid 
things of life. It was when Major Morris had gone 
off to Richmond, at the head of the Redtown Rifles, 
leaving Mrs. Morris to run the place as long as there 
were any hands to run it with, that Mrs. New felt her- 
self for the first time in a position to pity the oldest 
family in the county. There is a solid element of 
comfort in being able to pity people that have always 
stood on a social ledge above you, and Mrs. New ex- 
tracted all the comfort possible out of the situation 
compatible with a real desire to console her neighbor. 
It was then that Mrs. Morris, for the first time, found 
herself in a position to admire Mrs. New as a woman 
of wonderful energy and fertility in invention. There 
was no use being stiff-necked with your nearest neigh- 
bor at a time when total annihilation of every thing 
and every body seemed not only possible, but immi- 
nent. So when Mrs. New rowed across the lake, but 
"wouldn't get out," just to send Mrs. Morris a lot of 
freshly-cured palmetto for hat plaiting, as she had 
heard palmetto was very scarce in the " Shallows " 
woods, Mrs. Morris rowed across from her side the 
very next day to thank Mrs. New for the palmetto, 
and to tell her she had discovered that pecan bark 



loo MRS. NEW AND THE OLD FAMILIES, 

and alum would dye a beautiful bottle-green ; and she 
did get out, and walked all around Mrs. New's flower- 
garden, and vegetable-garden, and dairy, and poultry- 
yard, inspecting things precisely as she and the 
Colonel's wife, who were just like sisters, always in- 
spected each other's premises. And that was the 
beginning of it. There was so much that each could 
teach the other ; and if during these interviews Mrs. 
Morris ever thought of ante-bellum barriers at all, it 
was with an inner reflection that when things returned 
to ante-bellum conditions, as, of course, they would, 
they (the barriers) could be re-erected, if necessary, 
as strong as ever. In the meantime, it was really com- 
forting to have such a neighbor. While they were 
all moaning over their deprivation of flour and of 
coffee, Mrs. New was perfecting all sorts of experi- 
ments. The coffee she made out of okra seed, and 
roasted sweet potatoes, actually did taste like coffee, 
if you drank it very hot and in rapid gulps, and the 
corn-meal that she bolted through tarletan made al- 
most as good muffins as real flour. Mrs. New found 
greatness thrust upon her when she succeeded in mak- 
ing candle-molds out of cane roots, and light once 
more issued out of darkness when she sent Mrs. Mor- 
ris a dozen candles made from the beef and mutton 
tallow that had been accumulating all the years while 
Mrs. New's market-cart had been her peripatetic re- 
proach. " They were just as firm and white as store 
candles," Mrs. Morris said in an enthusiastic little note 
of thanks, and Mrs. New felt that she had not lived in 
vain. 

Moments come into every life that quench egotism 



MRS. NEW AND THE OLD FAMILIES. loi 

SO completely that one marvels at its ever again re- 
suming potency. They came into Mrs. New's life 
when word came across the lake that Mrs. Morris's 
two little girls were very ill. Such an awful time to 
be ill ! No doctors, no drugs, no earthly comfort of 
any sort, but what one mother heart could pour into 
another mother heart. Mrs. New forgot then that the 
" Shallows " people antedated the Whitney invention, 
and Mrs. Morris forgot that Mr. New's father had 
been an overseer. There was nothing worth the re- 
membering but two small hot-handed sufferers that 
seemed to bind them together. And when the end 
came, writing the word "■ finis " to two very short 
chapters of human experience, Mrs. New hesitated 
only a few minutes as to whether she should send her 
black velvet circular or her black alpaca dress up to 
the carpenter's shop where two bare pine coffins were 
being made for the tiny dead of the richest people in 
the county. The velvet circular was sent, and the 
little Morrises were not laid away quite like paupers; 
And after Mrs. New had herself read the solemn 
^* Dust to dust, ashes to ashes," over the two little 
velvet-covered coffins, for lack of some higher digni- 
tary to read it, she always felt as if she had a proprie- 
tary interest in the Morrises, quick and dead. 

After the war there was no household that adjusted 
itself to the altered conditions quicker than the one 
Mrs. New presided over. Perhaps that was because 
it was less encumbered with accumulated traditions 
and inherited dignity. Mrs. New's life-time motto 
had been not to cry over spilled milk. She persist- 
ently set herself to work to make the best of the situa- 



I02 MRS. NEW AND THE OLD FAMILIES. 

tion. If the darkies were free and were " bound " to 
waste their wages on somebody, they might as well 
waste them on her, so for the first year or two after the 
war Mrs. New tried to divert many an honest penny 
from the tills of dishonest shopkeepers, who swarmed 
at every cross-road, by stocking her own storeroom 
shelves with sardines, and blue buckets, and brass 
jewelry, and it was even suspected that she made 
dresses for the colored ladies on the place, who were 
notoriously exacting in the manner of " puUbacks " 
and '^ polynays." Not that Mrs New publicly 
announced herself as a fashionable dressmaker for 
the '' Big-a-plenty " quarters, but the colored ladies of 
that plantation were observed to go to meeting on 
Sundays with the best fitting and most stylish-looking 
dresses to be seen in the county. She was rather 
glad than not that Elmira was away at school in those 
first years of restoration, when things were so new and 
rough on the plantations. 

Mrs. New's faith in the recuperative powers of the 
South is absolute and unshakable. She admits that 
the Confederates were overpowered b}^ numbers, but 
she does not think the final result altered the principles 
involved at all. She is not one of those people, how- 
ever, who don't know when they were whipped, and 
she firmly believes that by the time Elmira's children 
are coming on and growing inquisitive about the war, 
she will be able to give them information totally devoid 
of any acrimony, which she is not quite sure she could 
do just yet. She is a readjuster to a certain extent, 
and mildly advocates the advisability of educating the 
nation's wards, but when the nation's wards, as ex- 



MRS. NEW AND THE OLD FAMILIES, 103 

emplified in Miranda, her chambermaid, persist in 
stopping off at ten o'clock to go to a music lesson, Mrs. 
New is conscious of mental reservations concerning 
the Blair Educational Bill. The limits of her world 
have been contracted since the war. She does not 
go to Mardi Gras every year as she used to ; the 
money once spent in that way is now saved for Elmira, 
and she does not ride into town in the buggy with Mr. 
New when word reaches her that somebody is going 
to preach at the Court House. The buggy is just 
naturally worn out, and she does not care to invest 
in the new vehicle until Elmira comes home from 
school " finished." If she goes to town at all these 
days, it is in a chair in the two-mule wagon, which is 
more safe than elegant, especially if the summons has 
been so sudden that Merrick hasn't had time to take 
the cockle-burrs out of the mules' tails and manes. 
But she is not the only one who will go to church in a 
mule wagon sitting on a chair, and it is astonishing 
after all how one can get used to doing without things. 
The war furnishes her a precedent for almost every 
happening. She likes to think that Elmira's memory 
does not go back to those days, and that there is noth- 
ing in the present social code of the neighborhood to 
point to any difference between " The Shallow " and 
** Big-a-plenty." 

Her days pass very monotonously in a round of 
domestic duties, and she sometimes wishes she could 
find as much time to read as Mrs. Morris and the 
Colonel's wife do. She does not know how they get 
things attended to, but as for herself, she hardly has 
breathing-time from the moment she has finished 



I04 MRS. NEIV AND THE OLD FAMILIES. 

putting up her mincemeat in December up to August, 
when she begins the preserving and pickling for the 
year. 

Mrs. New virtually camps out in preserving and 
pickling season. She couldn't think of such a thing 
as doing such hot work in doors. Her tables and 
kettles and charcoal furnace and baskets of fruits and 
herself, are to be found through all the day-lit hours 
out in the back yard under a big pecan tree, and while 
the syrup boils and bubbles up in soft white puffs, she 
dexterously peels bushel after bushel of apples and 
peaches, and Mr. New happens around to taste the 
finished specimens sunning in big meat-dishes on the 
table under the tree, and Mingo manages to put him- 
self in the way of being scalded with hot scum every 
few seconds. The summer wanes and Mrs. New's 
pantry shelves gradually accumulate a quantity of 
preserves, and pickles, and jellies that are the admira- 
tion and the envy of Mrs. Morris and the Colonel's 
wife, who always had somebody to look after those 
things for them before the war. 

Men say that New has just the right sort of a wife for 
the times, and that if she is training her daughter to be 
like herself somebody is going to get another good 
wife some of these days. And when the Major's son 
comes to see Elmira, as soon as she gets home for 
vacation, Mrs. New falls to castle-building, and 
rejoices to think that her daughter will never suffer 
from the conventional distinctions that marred her 
own early wifehood. 



CHAPTER IX. 

WHY A NEW DOCTOR WENT THE ROUNDS. 

YOUR city doctor, who responds promptly to your 
telephonic summons, leaving his tall silk hat and 
kid gloves on your hall rack for the brief second of 
time he has to spare for diagnosis, may be the very 
best local specimen of his genus, but the genus is one 
that varies immensely, according to soil and climate, 
and he will be found to possess only a generic like- 
ness to the physician who does not find his limitations 
within brick-walled streets. The one is continually 
being pricked into a brisker gait by the spurs of com- 
petition and emulation ; the other ambles easily 
through life at a leisurely pace, conscious of a super- 
fluity of time and an undisputed territory. The one 
has no time to train the tendrils of affection around 
every projection ; with the other, they grow into and 
all about the hearthstones that are his particular 
charge. The one prescribes a remedy, the other 
administers it. 

There was old Dr. Goodman, for instance, in 

Parish, Louisiana (green grow the grass above his 
grave ! ) why, he was doctor and druggist, and nurse 
and minister, all in one. Minister, indeed ! his life 
was one long ministry to the welfare of others. No 



io6 A NEW DOCTOR. 

one ever saw him with a ruffled brow or a smooth 
shirt-front. His shoes were always dusty in summer 
and muddy in winter. He would have looked like a 
guy in a tall hat, and nothing but the direst extremity 
of cold ever led to the imprisonment of his pudgy 
brown hands in gloves, which, being simply regarded 
as protectors, were always the very biggest and clum- 
siest and warmest of their kind, usually huge yellow 
buckskin affairs of the unyielding variety that would 
take the impress of the Doctor's ample hands, and 
retain it so faithfully that they looked no more empty 
lying on the hall table by the side of his old brown 
felt hat than they did when in active service. A pair 
of gauntlets generally lasted the Doctor about two 
winters — the longer, perhaps, because of a certain 
tendency on their part to misplace themselves. It 
was a rare thing for him to know where his gloves 
were in event of an unexpected call, and, as his hat 
and his saddle-bags, with little compartments in them 
for bottles and powders and pills, and a few simple 
surgical instruments, were the only absolutely essen- 
tial equipment for a sortie, he seldom wasted precious 
time hunting for them. Beneath the crumpled shirt- 
front which nobody liked, but every body condoned, 
beat a big heart that never grew callous to the cry of 
distress, and whether the summons came in the early 
brightness of a fresh spring morning, or in the chill- 
ing depths of a winter's night, the Doctor, with 
heroic disregard of his own personal comfort, an- 
swered as promptly as was compatible with the more 
phlegmatic temperament of Whitestocking, his old 
"■ clay-bank " horse, who was his faithful but deliber- 



A NEW DOCTOR. 107 

ate coadjutor in good works for nearly a score of 
years. When one has to send miles over rough country 
roads for a doctor, fancying, perhaps erroneously, 
that the need is a mortal one, one is apt to lay more 
stress upon a ready response to the call than upon 
boots guiltless of stain or hands fastidiously clothed. 
The Doctor lived in town — that is there was a little 
four-roomed cottage, sitting away back in a big 
barren five-acre front yard at one end of the vil- 
lage, which was called Dr. Goodman's house, but it 
was the very last place in the world to look for him 
in. It was a cozy little affair, latticed in all around 
the underpinning, with a low, unbalustraded veranda, 
about the six white pillars of which grew as many 
different vines in luxuriant rivalry. There was the 
madeira vine, and the red cypress vine, and the coral 
honeysuckle, and the white '' Lady's Bank " rose, and 
the purple wistaria, and the glorious yellow jessamine, 
each clothing its appointed post with beauty and fra- 
grance all its own. The house itself was intensely 
green as to its shutters. Back of it was a sweet old- 
fashioned flower-garden, where lady-slippers and the 
hollyhocks ran riot, but the bare front yard was sacred 
to grass and to Whitestocking. The Doctor would 
as soon have thought of putting his own legs in the 
stocks as of stabling Whitestocking. Still back of 
the riotous flower-garden was a group of ram- 
shackle out-houses, among which was a doorless shed 
called grandiloquently Whitestocking's stable, but it 
was viewed with great disfavor by an animal who was 
sure of distinguished consideration in every stable in 
the county ; and Whitestocking never tarried under 



lo8 A NE W DOCTOR, 

its lowly roof any longer than was absolutely neces- 
sary to consume his morning's rations of fodder, or 
during an unusually severe storm. That was why 
any body, riding up in quest of the Doctor, felt pretty 
sure, if Whitestocking was not nibbling the Bermuda 
grass in the front yard, and the Doctor's saddle and 
bridle were not in equally full view on the front gal- 
lery, there was pursuit of him to be gone through 
with further on. 

In the city you have doctors, in the country they 
have the doctor, a potent personality, combining all 
the knowledge that more fortunate localities divide 
and subdivide among innumerable specialists. And 
still the wonder grew how one bald head could carry 
all he knew. The Doctor radiated from the little 
white and green house in the five-acre yard in all 
directions for a circuit of twenty miles. People said 
it was too much for him. Ambitious young medicos 
would only too gladly have convinced him that he 
needed a partner. He smiled benignantly on all such 
suggestions, cordially welcomed new doctors to the 
field on an independent basis, but waved aside all 
suggestions of partnerships with a light jest at its 
being possible for him to '' over-do " himself. 
'' MoUie'll see that I don't break down," he would 
say in answer to disinterested insistence, " MoUie's a 
great help." 

" Mollie " was Mrs. Doctor Goodman, and when- 
ever the country roads were such that the Doctor 
could put Whitestocking in the shafts instead of under 
the saddle, Mollie and he would make the rounds 
together, oftener than not with a basket carefully held 



A NEW DOCTOR. 169 

steady by their four substantial feet in the bottom of 
the buggy, in which would be such chicken broth, such 
wine jelly, and such wafers as nobody but the Doctor's 
wife knew how to make. She was an admirable sup- 
plement to the Doctor. If the friends of his patient 
grew worn with watching, or waxed untrustworthy by 
reason of over-anxiety, he would bring MoUie when 
he came again ; one night of her nursing would do 
more good than all the physic in his saddle-bags. If 
an operation trying to any body's nerves was to be per- 
formed, he wanted Mollie about. MoUie was as 
cool as a cucumber ; she stood fire well. If he lost 
in his hand-to-hand fight with Death, it was Mollie 
who came softly in his wake, pouring balm into the 
bruised heart and finding words of spiritual consola- 
tion for the mourners, which was more in Mollie's 
line than the physic. That is the reason it was 
generally regarded as a rather bad omen when the 
Doctor's wife left the flower-garden and the poultry- 
yard, which filled up the time so pleasantly for her 
during his long absences, and appeared by his side in 
the buggy. His absences would sometimes extend 
over the night and over the next day, and into the next 
day perhaps, for it was not the inmates of the "big 
house" alone to whom her "good man" ministered. 
It was to the numberless souls in the cabins in the 
quarter lot, for whose " doctoring " the master was per- 
sonally responsible, and who depended upon the big 
house with childlike reliance for professional attention 
when their ailments got beyond the simpler remedies 
that the mistress was skilled in. 

There was no more of formality in the Doctor's life 



iio A NEW DOCTOR. 

than there was in his dress. The house of each patron 
was his home for the time being, and his tastes were 
consulted with as much affectionate consideration, 
under whatever roof he chanced to find himself at 
meal-time, as by Mollie herself. The deliberation with 
which he stayed on at the plantation for which he had 
set out in such hot haste was comical. Once satisfied 
that the " case " was such as would yield readily to 
treatment, and no sybarite could become more sud- 
denly self-indulgent than he. Whitestocking remanded 
to the stable, and his saddle-bags reposing on a side 
table in the sick-room, he would give himself up to 
enjoyment of the well members of the family, and to 
kindly inquiry into the status of the entire place, with 
that singleness of heart and keenness of sympathy 
which made the whole lot of them his kin pro tern. 
There was the mother's spleen to be inquired for, and 
the baby's coming teeth to be voluntarily inspected, 
with perhaps the lancet brought into use from the 
saddle-bags in the sick-room. There was the health 
of the quarters to be discussed and a little gratuitous 
advice to be given concerning the cleaning out of the 
cisterns in view of cholera rumors. There was the 
prospect of war in Europe and of worms in the cotton 
crops to be reviewed with the master. There was 
dinner to be eaten and a cigar to be smoked after- 
ward. There was the projected barn to be talked of 
and his solicited opinion concerning the site and the 
size to be given, his interest in the family extending 
even to the rafters and the girders of the new building. 
There was the string of fresh fish from the bayou, if 
it was spring, or the lot of ducks if it was winter, to 



A NEW DOCTOR. HI 

be tied to the ring in Whitestocking's saddle, when he 
started homeward, which he might as well do by way 
of the quarters, so he could stop at old Dinah's cabin 
and see if that last prescription of his had routed her 
asthma ; and all this was to be accomplished with a 
running interspersion of visits to the sick-room, whose 
occupant was the prime cause of his presence. No 
one ever seriously lamented over a slight ailment that 
was just a good excuse for summoning Dr. Goodman, 
for as a medium of communication with every part of 
the parish he stood without a rival, and was an excel- 
lent substitute for a local newspaper. Friends who 
were truly friends, without being equal to the exertion 
of a correspondence, would ply him indefatigably for 
all the news concerning those whom^ they would rarely 
hear of or from but for the Doctor. He was a kindly- 
natured medium who told all the good he knew and 
discreetly suppressed all the evil. But many a bit of 
local news would find its way from plantation to plan- 
tation, retailed deliberately, as the Doctor, with an 
upturned dinner-plate for a pill tile, would compound 
a supply of quinine pills for his patient, by the aid of 
a pinch of flour and a drop of molasses. Capsules 
were an undreamed-of refinement in his day, and a 
local druggist would have inspired him with envious 
disgust. He mixed his own nauseous potions with 
smiling benignity. 

The world would perhaps have been the wiser and 
the better for some of the cogitations that occupied 
the Doctor's active brain in his long and lonely rides 
from one plantation to the other. Nature had intended 
him for a student of science. Fate intermeddled and 



112 A NEW DOCTOR. 

made a country doctor of him. Nothing could pre- 
vent, his being an original thinker, and many a novel 
conception, which, with proper nourishment, might 
have achieved the dignity of a theory — a beneficent 
theory, perhaps — had its germ within the cool recesses 
of the woods, where the gray Spanish moss made a 
perpetual twilight around him as he rode. 

No system of philosophy or ethics was too complex 
for him to grapple with, or too simple for him to en- 
tertain respectfully, without any of that personal van- 
ity that made the code of morals, manners or medi- 
cine which he advocated the best in the world, simply 
because it was his code. He would listen with the 
earnest simplicity of an untaught child to opinions 
from any and every source, perhaps sending an igno- 
rant boor away from his audience, comfortably elated 
by the conviction that he had taught the Doctor 
something. Some misapprehensions were due to this 
admirable mental equipoise, and the fair-mindedness 
which led to his examining and weighing the evidence 
for and against every new problem that presented 
itself. The spiritualist who was stopping over all 
night at Colonel Benson's, when little Rob Benson 
was suffering from the accidental discharge of his 
shot-gun, and who poured his nebulous notions whole- 
sale into the Doctor's patient ears, as he placidly 
picked the bird-shot from Rob's wounded foot, went 
away satisfied that he had left an intelligent and zeal- 
ous convert behind him, and consequently deluged the 
Doctor with spiritualistic literature for months subse- 
quent. The ritualist minister, who held high carnival 
periodically in the pretty little Gothic church on " the 



A NE IV DOCTOR. II3 

square/' felt morally sure that it. would require but 
the slightest amount of exertion on his part to trans- 
form the Doctor into a shining light in his Episcopal 
Church. The Methodist parson was equally sure the 
Doctor was in the right path, and, if Darwin could 
have looked upon him with the eye of flesh as he de- 
voured his theories of evolution, he would have con- 
gratulated himself on so promising and intelligent a 
disciple. Not that the Doctor was in any sense of the 
word a truckler to other men's opinions, but an honest 
Mohammedan would have met with as respectful a 
hearing from him as the Dean of St. Paul's. The 
honesty was all he insisted upon. Its absence in any 
matter, small or great, was w^hat he could never for- 
give: 

It was a sort of exaggeration of this virtue, if such 
a thing is possible, that set the Doctor to " keeping 
books " during and after the war. Before that time 
his financial transactions were of the simplest possible 
sort. There were so many plantations within his beat. 
The owner of each plantation paid him so many hun- 
dred dollars for medical attendance. It was a com- 
fortable arrangement for him, and on the strength of 
it, the slave and the master, the darkey baby in its 
clumsy wooden cradle, and the darling of the big 
house, shared alike in his attentions and his drugs. 
But it was when the maxim, *' Every man for himself," 
virtually came in with the new order, that the Doctor 
began to keep books, and was forced to take a per- 
sonal and onerous interest in the cotton crops of his 
parish. 

The Doctor's books are still extant. They are very 



114 A NEW DOCTOR. 

curious specimens of the accountant's skill. Debit 
and credit stand in odd relation to any known legal- 
tender. One page from his funny day-book would 
repay perusal. If the Doctor had ever been forced into 
litigation, it is very doubtful if his books would have 
been taken in testimony against the most flagrant of- 
fender. All of the leisure time that used to be spent 
by him and " MoUie " wandering through the new let- 
tuce-beds or the radish rows, in the little garden 
where the hollyhocks and the dahlias flaunted their 
bright heads abreast of the tall fence-pickets, were con- 
sumed, in those later days, in frenzied efforts to make 
his books balance. 

Who could make a balance out of " Henry Giles' 
Child — one fit — calomel one dose — owes sixty pounds 
lint cotton " ; " Molly's boy — youngest — congestive 
chill — chloroform and quinine — twice — one hundred 
pounds lint " ; " Benson's teamster — mule kick — surg. 
op. — one bale cotton " ; " The Davis darkeys— chills 
— one ounce quinine — three bushels sweet potatoes — 
bottle of Cholagogue — six pullets " ; " Cholera on 
Pratt's place — darkeys club together — one colt this 
fall — two bales cotton — etc., etc." 

It was then that the Doctor's crops began to come 
in, one bale at a time, a pinched-looking bale, per- 
haps, composed of the sum total of all the scattered 
pounds of lint cotton owing him on one place, gath- 
ered conscientiously together by his debtors and 
pressed into one bale, to be hauled to town with the 
next shipment and dumped down in the Doctor's big 
front yard, where it would lie waiting for a rise in the 
Liverpool market, or for more of its kind, taking its 



A NEW DOCTOR. IT5 

chances of wind and weather, an object of fright and 
scorn to Whitestocking, who eyed it with evident dis- 
appro\al in the hght of a legal-tender for services in 
which he had performed no insignificant part. Per- 
haps, when the crops were all ginned, the Doctor's 
share would amount to some seven or eight bales, 
when he would brand it with his own initials and pri- 
vate mark and ship it, for weeks thereafter taking an 
unusual interest in the cotton quotations in the New 
Orleans papers. It was in those days that the Doctor's 
wife, true helpmate that she was, began to take entire 
supervision of the dispensary. The Doctor's own benev- 
olent preference would have been to give away his drugs 
as freely as he gave of his cistern water to all his improv- 
ident neighbors" during the drought, but the Doctor's 
wife, fortunately for him, had a prudent streak with 
which to oftset his uncalculating generosity, so she re- 
minded him that " times were not what they used to be," 
to which he assented with a sigh ; and that " they were 
both getting old," to which he assented with a smile; 
and that " his books were as much as he could attend 
to when not on the road," to which he assented with 
a groan ; " so the dispensing of the drugs had better 
be left to her," to which he assented with that abso- 
lute confidence in Mollie's superior wisdom which was 
the outcome of many placid years of conjugal life 
and mutual confidence. By what process of mental 
arithmetic the Doctor's wife computed how many eggs 
would purchase a dozen quinine pills, or how many 
quarts of blackberries would be fair compensation for 
a porous-plaster, or how many long-necked cashaws 
would offset a pint of castor oil, was known to herself 



Ii6 A NEW DOCTOR. 

alone ; but when the eggs and the pullets and the sweet 
potatoes and "■ garden truck" accumulated with unusual 
rapidity during the sickly season, the Doctor would 
enter his simple protest : " No profit, my dear, no 
profit. Simply cost of drugs ; remember that." And 
MoUie remembered that conscientiously. Nobody 
complained of her as an extortioner. 

But the day came when MoUie dispensed the drugs 
with mechanical caution and took her odd returns 
with listless indifference ; when the Doctor's crop 
accumulated in the front yard, without any one caring 
to ship it ; when Whitestocking waxed fat and lazy 
on the grass in the big yard, and would stand for 
hours with his long head resting on the top board of 
the front fence, wistfully wondering what this long 
and unprecedented vacation for himself meant ; when 
a young and untried physician went the rounds of the 
plantations with an oppressive sense of intrusion into 
anotlier man's domain, and was abjectly certain that 
he was only sent for because the Doctor could not be 
procured : when the men were divided between words 
of blame for Doctor Goodman and expressions of pro- 
found admiration ; when the women were unanimous 
in their outcry against him for endangering a life so 
important to them and theirs : when the Memphis 
papers were waited for eagerly until the rigid quar- 
antine regulations shut off the final source of infor- 
mation as to what was befalling the man who was 
enshrined in the heart of every man, woman, and child 
within his own parish, but who had recklessly gone 
away from them at the risk of his precious life. 

Memphis lay palpitating under the scourge of yellow 



A NEW DOCTOR. 1 17 

fever. Her cry for help had rung throughout the 
land. More nurses, more doctors, more skill — that 
was all her plaint. His great heart responded with a 
bound to the wail of suffering humanity. For only a 
few agitated days and nights he debated the course of 
duty with his own conscience. Once his course de- 
cided before that high tribunal, no power on earth 
could sway him a hand's breadth. The greatest good 
to the greatest number must be the right thing to aim 
for. It carried him away from his home with the 
peace of early sunrise resting on its vine-clad gallery 
like a benediction. The sound of Mollie's sobs and 
the faint perfume of the " Lady Bank " roses followed 
him as he rode away on the path conscience pointed 
out. They abode with him many a long day afterward, 
as he went to and fro untiringly among the sick and 
the dying, and the panic-stricken of the pestilence- • 
swept town clung to him, but, at last, in the very hour 
of victory, when the silent foe loosed his awful death- 
grip and was slinking out of sight, he paused for one 
more rally. Death chose a shining mark in that fatal 
rally, and the Doctor went down. Strange hands 
ministered to the man who had come voluntarily to 
them in the hour of their mortal need ; ministered 
tenderly, skillfully, unavailingly. No one knew it 
sooner than he, no one had to announce the inevitable 
to him. It was he who, looking up into the tearful 
faces of his new-made friends, said to them : '' Tell 
Mollie not to blame me for coming. I couldn't help it. 
I would do it all over again. Poor Mollie ! " Then he 
fell asleep. 

Grateful hands erected a costly shaft over him and 



Il8 A NEIV DOCTOR, 

grateful hearts dictated the epitaph that tells how he 
came to them and cheerfully gave up his life for them, 
and he is embalmed among the most sacred local tradi- 
tions of the people for whom he died. But the void 
left by his taking-off is not there. It is down in the 
lowlands, where he had been friend, guide, and healer 
to more than one generation of loyal adherents ; it is 
in the little green and white house, behind the flower- 
wreathed veranda, where a lonely widow dispenses the 
drugs he left behind him with simple skill learned of 
him through more than two-score years of loving com- 
panionship — it is everywhere where the Doctor, with 
his rumpled shirt-front and his serenely benevolent 
smile, was a well-beloved and familiar entity whose 
place can never be filled. 



CHAPTER X. 

JIM bailey's folks. 

HIDDEN away in the heart of the somber pine 
forests that cover with a dense growth some 
portions of the State of Mississippi, are to be found 
innumerable small farms that offer sharp points of 
contrast in every respect to the larger plantations in 
the rich " bottom lands " of the same State. They 
are scarcely more than clearings ('' deadenin's," in 
the local vernacular) in the woods that begirt them 
with their columnar trunks and dark-green canopies. 
The resinous, health-giving breath of the pines makes 
of the dwellers in these poor lands a hardy race, who 
are, happily, themselves absolutely unconscious of the 
barrenness of the lives they lead, as seen from the 
aesthetic point of view. 

Ugly black stumps stand thickly about in the 
rough furrows, whose stiff clayey clods promise scant 
crops of corn and scanter yields of *' bumble-bee " 
cotton (better called " break-back cotton," because to 
pick it in its dwarfed growth is a sore trial to the 
spinal column of an adult). The " deadening " is 
marked by the gaunt specters of dead trees whose 
stripped trunks gleam with ghostly whiteness in the 
moonlight, and when they wave their useless limbs in 
sighing protest against the seasons that come and go, 



I20 JIM BAILEY'S FOLKS. 

and leave them still standing in helpless mockery of 
their former stateliness, a sense of isolation pervades 
every breast not grown callous to such influences, as, 
fortunately, the '' piney woods folks " all have. The 
fencing that defines these roughly-cleared fields 
against the woods belongs to no particular school of 
architecture. The only essential point about it is that 
it must be pig-proof. The barren pine lands offer 
slight inducements for stock-raising, and the few lean 
kine that nose about in the brown fragrant needles, 
with a hopeless sense of wasted time, depend princi- 
pally upon the stubble left in the ragged corn-fields 
after fodder-pulling time. They stand in a listless 
group near by the bars almost constantly. Experience 
has taught them that the far-away canebrake will 
scarcely be reached before a barefoot, hatless boy, 
with a retinue of a half-dozen yelping curs at his 
heels, will be urging their return with importunity 
that can not be slighted ; so enterprise ceases to be a 
bovine virtue, and the cattle learn to be as stolidly 
enduring as the men and the women to whose comfort 
they contribute, though meagerly. 

The hill planter h"as what would emphatically be 
characterized as a " hard time of it " by men brought 
down to such conditions from a higher social plane, 
but having been born into it, and only knowing in a 
dull, theoretical way of any better mode of living, he 
accepts it as he does the sterility of the red clay he 
patiently plows^ and hoes and rakes year after year, 
and plants with cotton and corn and sweet potatoes 
and sorghum. He knows the " bottoms " are rich, 
while his own land is poor. But it, is so, and that's 



JIM BAILEYS FOLKS. I2I 

all of it. The hill lands are " his'n," the bottoms 
aren't. No socialist murmurings ever disturb the 
peace of his baked-clay hearth. No envious sighs are 
ever wasted upon his neighbor's fat kine and full 
barns. But he is not conscious of being a philoso- 
pher. 

He knows and practices many sorts of thrift that 
would be " picayuuish " in his richer neighbor, who 
ships his " ties " by the hundreds. There are rows 
of bee-gums lining the rude picket-fence that shuts 
the log-house in from the stumpy cornfields. There 
is a patch of broom corn in one end of the place that 
will find its way eventually in shape of round brooms 
into the town, where the hill-planter goes about Christ- 
mas time with his crop to sell, and a miscellaneous 
cargo to dispose of that will tax his one yoke of steers 
to their utmost hauling capacity. Life has never 
presented itself to him in any of its luxuriant phases. 
There has been no redundancy of any sort (children 
excepted) to render him careless of the present or 
avid of the future. He has no profound repinings or 
bounding ambitions. He is content to live on the 
dead level of practicality and common-sense. The 
philosophy of his existence resolves itself into a for- 
mula : " Whar's the use er frettin' over what can't be 
hindered?" The log-cabin to which he brought a 
bride as practical and as patient as himself seventeen 
years ago is not a thing of beauty, and if he had 
thought about it a little longer he would have " faced " 
it so that the blazing sun should not rise " smack " on 
the front gallery in the morning, and set equally as 
smack on the back gallery in the evening, thus giving 



122 JIM BAILEY'S FOLKS. 

the hemmed-in little homestead the full but dubious 
benefit of its glare all day long ; but that's one of the 
things that can't be hindered now, so he sits on his 
gallery at resting-time and mops his furrowed brow 
in patient endurance of the glare and the heat that 
beat mercilessly down upon him. If he had it to do 
over again, he wouldn't swap his old mule Sandy off 
for that brood mare, for she's that broken-winded that 
he " darsn't " drive her out of a walk, and he's 
obliged to acknowledge he got badly " tuck in " that 
time ; but the mule's gone, and the mare's broken- 
windedness is another thing that can't be hindered, so 
he accommodates himself to her infirmities and doesn't 
fret because she is scarcely better than a dead-head 
on the farm. In moments of prolonged reverie, such 
as come to him of Sundays, or when he is tramping 
the woods with his gun on his shoulder, waiting for 
" Drab," who is trotting at his heels, to tree a coon, 
or in the early spring, when the one lopsided peach- 
tree that shades the iron chain-pump at the back door is 
all aflush with its dainty pink blossoms, and the soft 
hum of the bees fills his ears as he plows his semi- 
circular rows around the red-clay sides of the hill that 
has given his place the name of " Bailey's Knoll," there 
may come back to him dull echoes from a far-away 
past, in which there stirred within him a short-lived 
ambition to '' be something," perhaps — a vague ambi- 
tion and a still vaguer something. But that was when 
he went to school in Flaxville for a whole year, and 
•got a lot of book nonsense in his head. His father 
soon got him out of that notion when he gave him 
*' Bailey's Knoll," two mules, a wagon, and a stock of 



JIM BAILEY'S FOLKS. 123 

poultry, pigs, and calves, and told him to " root for 
himself." He has been rooting ever since very 
patiently. And if the idea stirred up by the book 
nonsense of his Flaxville days ever intrudes, he puts 
it down with a strong will. Things are as they are, 
and it's the worst sort of foolishness to '' fret " 
over what can't be " hindered." 

The meager conditions of their lot seem to impress 
themselves upon the anatomy and physiognomy of the 
piney-woods folks. In spite of the wholesome atmos- 
phere and the healing breath of the pines, a rosy 
cheek or a plump form is a rarity. Descriptively, 
they are sad. In point of fact they are simply stolid. 
Sadness presupposes disappointment, loss, failure of 
hope. Disappointment presupposes desire. The 
desires of these patient toilers of the woods seldom 
overtop their ability to fulfill them. They desire rea- 
sonably, hope practically, expect always within 
bounds of probability. In point of independence and 
honesty " Jim Bailey's folks," as the neighbors called 
the Knoll people, could have given many a theoretical 
and practical point. When Mrs. Bailey rode over to 
Mrs. Colonel Mason's place on the broken-winded mare 
to carry home the rag carpet which she had woven for 
the Colonel's wife on her little hand-loom, she was 
very proud of the gay product of her own industry, 
and descanted on its superiority to the worthless 
'' two-plys " that it was to replace, with intelligent 
loquacity and no sense of personal inferiority to the 
fine lady who paid her liberally for the carpet. She 
" w^ouldn't change places with her for the world, if the 
Mason house did make forty of her cabin on Bailey's 



124 JIM BAILEYS FOLKS. 

Knoll. Mrs. Mason had some spine trouble, poor- 
creature, and could only take the air in her fine car- 
riage. No grandeur this world could afford would 
compensate Mrs. Bailey for the uselessness of her own 
sturdy homespun clad limbs. Besides * Mason ' was 
head over ears in debt to his commission merchants, 
and, thank God, Jim didn't owe any man a red cent." 
Nothins: could exceed their horror of debt. Mrs. 
Bailey was not above taking hints from the superior 
elegance of her neighbors, and if it was any thing that 
Jim's ingenuity or industry could compass in some 
cheap form, some of the Mason belongings might be 
duplicated at Bailey's Knoll. It was with a sense 
of pardonable exultation that she would repeat the 
annual story of Mrs. Mason's preserves all ''sourin' " 
and her pickles all " moldin'." No '' slap-dash nig- 
ger " ever had the making of Mrs. Bailey's preserves 
and pickles. If it 'twasn't so *' hard on the old man 
to ask for so much sugar," there would have been no 
limit to the jars of quinces and crab-apples and water- 
melon rinds, cut into wondrous shapes, that would 
have found their way into the little shed room that 
Mrs. Bailey called her store-room. But there was no 
use trying to feed seven mouths on " sweets " every 
day, so Mrs. Bailey's preserves were forthcoming only 
at long intervals, and then on occasion of some nota- 
ble occurrence — a birthday perhaps. Pumpkin 
stewed in sorghum molasses, or an occasional sweet- 
potato pie, was luxury enough for Bailey's Knoll, as 
a usual thing. 

Once a year there are signs of unusual activity at 
Bailey's Knoll. It occurs annually at about the same 



JIM BAILEY'S FOLKS. 1 25 

period, that is, near on towards Christmas, when the 
two bales of "bumble-bee" cotton have been picked 
out by the entire family, including the smallest child, 
whose limited stature and nimble fingers render him 
peculiarly fit for the office, have been ginned and 
baled "over at Mason's" for a toll of lint, and have 
been hauled back home on the ox-cart to await the 
annual accumulation of truck with which it will be 
still further loaded on the day when Jim Bailey, 
perched on one of the opulent looking bales, and Mrs. 
Bailey, with a splintless sun-bonnet flapping about her 
sun-burned face, mounted on the wind-broken mare, 
will pace patiently to town ; for Jim can not be 
trusted alone with so stupendous an undertaking as 
this trading expedition, on which the physical comfort 
of the entire family must depend for so many months. 
The disposition of the -two bales of cotton for ready 
cash he can be trusted to attend to ; but, besides that, 
the ox-cart will have several sacks of "yams" and 
yellow Spanish sweet potatoes. It will have great 
strings of tiny-grained popcorn, like many-colored 
ivory. It will have several gallons of strained honey, 
baskets of creamy eggs, from which the family have 
been rigidly excluded for weeks past ; a score or two 
of squawking pullets tied together by the legs ; a pil- 
low-slip full of live geese feathers, that Mrs. Bailey 
has unflinchingly plucked with her own determined 
hand, in spite of the vociferous protest of the rightful 
owners thereof, held imprisoned between her unyielding 
knees. There will be shapely door-mats, made of 
corn-shucks, which Bailey and the boys have wrought 
at of evenings by the blazing light of their wood fires. 



126 jnr BAILEY'S FOLKS. 

There will be a pile of 'coon skins that have one by 
one ornamented the outer walls of the white- washed 
log cabin on the Knoll until duly stretched, and the 
interstices will be filled up with long-necked cashaws 
and huge yellow pumpkins. It will be an all-day's 
absence from home, and the period of tantalizing 
expectation it wnll inflict on the children left behind 
will be more than compensated for by a large sense of 
personal liberty. The dogs will walk boldly into the 
house to partake of the holiday with their two-legged 
companions. Martha, the nominal head of the family 
on the momentous occasion, prefers to tidy up after 
the boys rather than undertake the hopeless task of 
keeping them w^ithin bounds. Martha is a gaunt, 
sad-eyed girl of sixteen, who has had a love affair, 
and has never recovered from the bilious condition it 
threw her into. Her mother is of the impression it 
has '' settled on her liver." • The effects of it are 
mainly apparent in a certain slow irritability that most 
frequently finds vent on the boys. 

When Jim Bailey sees the sun sinking behind the 
wooden steeple of Flaxville Methodist meeting-house, 
he knows it is time for him to put the yoke on the steers 
that have been comfortably munching their fodder 
under the big oak tree in front of " Govey's store," and 
to load up for home. If he, in the unusual excitement 
of talking over the crops with a lot of fellows at 
Govey's, neglects this sign of waning day, Mrs. Bailey 
will promptly remind him of it by waving her sun- 
bonnet at him over the palings of *' Miss Brandin's " 
front yard, to which the broken-winded mare is tethered. 
She always goes to see Mrs. Brandon when she comes 



JIM BAILEY'S FOLKS. 127 

in to Flaxville. In fact she and Jim always take 
their dinner there, securing a welcome by a lot of 
dried apples, some cashaws, and a quart or two of the 
strained honey that formed items of the truck. As 
the wagon creaks its way homeward through the dark- 
ening woods, it will have gained in the value of its 
load what it has lost in bulk. There will be " yellow 
domestics," " blue cotton checks," and red flannel 
galore. There will be a pair of new stout shoes for 
every member of the family, from Jim down to '' little 
Jim," his latest born and his namesake. There will 
be huge hanks of blue and white yarn for the knitting 
of the "best socks"; Mrs. Bailey's own wheel can 
turn off an article good enough for every-day wear. 
There will be a lilac-calico and an embroidered muslin 
collar for " Marthy." " Marthy" is young yet, and if her 
liver isn't just quite right, she's entitled by reason of 
her youth and a certain prettiness that is magnified by 
the maternal lens, to a slight margin in the direction of 
frivolity. There will be a new slate and half a dozen 
slate pencils with barber-pole ornamentation on their 
blunt ends for Ben. Ben's slates are subject to catas- 
trophes, and are seldom intact longer than a week from 
date of purchase, but they are regarded as sensible in- 
vestments, for Ben shows a " turn for figgers," and is 
regarded as the possible future Rothschild of the con- 
cern. The stars light them on their homewerd way 
as they go slowly, not minding the heavy tread of the 
tired oxen or the asthmatic breathing of the mare, for 
there is. so much to tell. Jim has picked up no end of 
news at Govey's store, and what his wife has left un- 
gleaned from "Miss Brandin's" field of gossip would 



128 JIM BAILEY'S FOLKS. 

scarcely repay the efforts of the most inveterate news- 
monger. There is the price at which the cotton went 
to be discussed, and the phrases of admiration eUcited 
by the shuck mats to be repeated. There's the rumor 
that Mason's about to be ^'foreclosed on a mortgige " 
to be retailed cautiously ; there's the new " polonay " 
pattern kindly lent by Mrs. Brandon for the benefit of 
Martha's new lilac calico, to be described with all the 
mystifying minutiae of gore and " pin-back," for Jim's 
utter bewilderment, and there's the good solid piece of 
commercial luck to be gloated over in the ordering, by 
no less a personage than Govey himself, of a barrel of 
her best soft-soap. The ride home under the quiet 
stars is restful and pleasant to them both after the 
turbulent activity of a whole day spent in town. 

The lamp is lighted in the " sitting-room," which is 
also the dining-room,when Jim gives one final resound- 
ing crack of his long ox-whip, more as a signal for the 
boys to come out and help unload than with a view to 
urge the steers to any further exertion, for the block 
stile is reached, and Mrs. Bailey has already jumped 
nimbly down into the yard and is fending off the tumul- 
tuous greetings of all the yard dogs, while she gives 
directions to the boys as to the disposition of the vari- 
ous boxes and packages, Jim is rapidly piling up on 
top of the stile. Her heart does not fail her at sight 
of the bolt of gray jeans piled on top of the yellow do- 
mestics and the blue cotton checks, although she 
knows that the task of transforming them all into wear- 
ing apparel for " the old man " and the boys will be all 
her own, without other aid than " Marthy's" slow, un- 
trained fingers. No sewing-machine has added its 



JIM BAILEY'S FOLKS. 129 

brisk clatter to the slow, soft melody of the spinning- 
wheel,which is the only music that ever stirs the silence 
of the cabin on the knoll. Fortunately, none of the 
Bailey folks are over-fastidious, and if Jim's new jeans 
suitjwhich he will conscientiously forbear putting on 
before Christmas Day, should turn out to be lacking 
in length of sleeves or trowsers-legs, if the difficulty in 
bringing the horn breast-buttons into friendly relations 
with their complementary button-holes, and a certain 
inaccessibility of pocket, should betray the 'prentice 
hand of Mrs. Bailey too pointedly, what matter ? It 
will be ranked among those things that can't be hin- 
dered, and are therefore not to be fretted over. 

There are very few things in this world that Jim 
Bailey does think worth fretting over, and those are all 
alterable things. One of the sorest trials he has so 
far been called on to endure is Martha's " mopin'," as 
he is pleased to call it. It involves a great disap- 
pointment to him. He and Mrs. Bailey had hit on a 
cheap plan for the education of the four white-haired, 
blunt-witted boys who complete their family of five 
children, and he rather resented any body's having it 
in his power to interfere with that plan. Marthy was 
the oldest, and Marthy was " real peert.'' She was put 
to board at Mrs. Brandon's, and had the advantage of 
two whole years of schooling. They meant she should 
have had three, but Mrs. Brandon wrote them word 
that the school-teacher, who was a young man, was 
" makin' a fool of Marthy, and nothin' less," which 
carried Mr. Bailey promptly into town. Finding that 
there was only too much ground for Mrs. Brandon's 
friendly note of warning, he wore out a stout cow-hide 



T 3 O JIM B A /LEY'S FOL KS. 

whip and the schoolmaster's best black coat at the same 
time, and took Marthy home behind him on the mare. 
The schoolmaster left Flaxville that same night, and 
if the affair made much of a stir, nobody cared to dis- 
cuss it with Jim Bailey, for under the long, lank, 
sandy hair that lies in smooth lines beneath his broad- 
brimmed slouch hat gleams a pair of rather dangerous- 
looking blue eyes. Marthy has never heard the 
schoolmaster's name mentioned since she came home ; 
he has dropped entirely out of her life, but there are 
times when a wave of recollection sweeps over her, 
and she recalls all the bright promises he made her, 
and all the beautiful things he promised she should 
see, and all the wondrous joy she should know, and 
then the whitewashed cabin on Bailey's Knoll looks 
like a prison to her, and the meaningless chatter of 
the boys jars on her, and she seeks refuge down by the 
spring, where only the birds and bees come to drink, 
where the dark shrubs close her in from sight of the 
fields, and it all feels as if somebody had laid a cool 
hand on her hot pulses and brought peace with it. 
She knows they will look darkly on her when she goes 
back to the house, for her father is always his coldest 
to her after one of '' Marthy's spells," which is the 
reason Mrs. Bailey is so insistent about its being her 
liver. Sentiment in any of its manifestations is some- 
thing, in Jim's estimation, to bring the blush of shame 
to every honest cheek, and to have a girl of his 
" mopin' " about a fellow that '' wasn't worth the pow- 
der that 'd kill him," was as near being a blot on his 
'scutcheon as he could stand, without " frettin' " vig- 
orously and outspokenly. 



JIM BA IL E V S FO L KS. 1 3 1 

The building- of castles in the air is not an occupa- 
tion that consumes much time for ''Bailey's folks." 
Perhaps Jim himself looks forward to the time when, 
the boys being all grown, he can take in more land and 
make more cotton. His wildest flight of imagination 
carries Ben triumphantly to a high stool at Govey's, 
which the head bookkeeper always occupies. If Ben 
shows a " leanin' " toward mercantile life, he shan't 
cross him. There'll be enough boys left to keep the 
old place moving, and to make things a little easier on 
him and "ma" when they shall be '' gettin' on in 
years." 

What goes on in the world beyond the belt of pine 
woods that begirts his little clearing is of small con- 
sequence to him. In a confused fashion he knows of 
the leading men and most notable public events, but 
he is no politician. He is the indifferent possessor of 
an undervalued vote. It never addresses itself to him 
in the light of a duty that he should go to the polls 
on election day, which he generally does, however, for 
the sociability of the thing, without any personal lean- 
ings for or against either candidate ; and so long as 
there are no doctor's bills to pay on Bailey's Knoll, or 
any " lawyer chap sticking an impudent nose " into 
his private affairs for the benefit of any creditor ; and 
cotton don't go below 8^^ cents ; and "ma" don't 
show any signs of failing, just so long will stolid Jim 
Bailey drink the cold spring water from the sweet big 
white gourd that hangs over the brass-bound cedar 
bucket on the back gallery corner shelf, and rid himself 
of the* sweat of honest toil by the aid of the tin basin 
and roller-towel that are its near neighbors, with a 



132 JIM BAILEY'S FOLIOS. 

placid sense of material well-doing and the firm con- 
viction that this being the best world he knows any 
thing about, there's no use " frettin' " about another 
one if it can possibly be " hindered." 



CHAPTER XI. 



M A M M Y. 



WHAT a despot she was ! What a gentle, tart, 
coaxable, domineering old paradox, whom we 
children loved and feared extravagantly and unrea- 
sonably. 

From an aesthetic point of view. Mammy was not 
satisfactory, but then no one ever thought of taking 
her from an aesthetic point of view. From the apex 
of her conical turban to the broad soles of her clumsy 
shoes, however, she was a good and comforting and 
wholesome thing to have about, although she was not 
what the old romance writer would have called 
"comely." She hangs in memory's picture-gallery as 
a short and shapeless personality, not built according 
to any known canon of Greek classicism ; with an 
exceedingly wrinkled black face, illumined by a pair 
of kindly eyes, and overtopped by a towering ban- 
danna handkerchief, whose dazzling plaids were among 
the earliest object lessons our infantile brains coped 
with. 

There is a certain pattern of blue plaid cotton still 
turned out of the mills that always evokes the familiar 
vision of Mammy on week days. (On Sundays she 
was gorgeous in a purple alpaca, trimmed with black 



134 MAMMY. 

braid.) Her favorite plaid was the extremest, in 
point of size, the fashion would allow, and those plaids 
never by any accident matched at the seams, which 
was excessively trying to our sense of exactness. The 
large white horn buttons that confined the rigidly 
plain waist of her dress across her honest bosom have 
many a time left a fleeting impress on the fleshy tab- 
lets of our young cheeks. There was always a rather 
exaggerated hiatus between the hem of that cotton 
dress and the stout blue yarn stockings that clothed 
her nether limbs, but we children rather approved the 
conspicuity of those stockings, for we took a sort of 
proprietary interest in them. 

We had all grown up together, as it were, in the big 
pleasant bedroom that looked out on the pomegranate 
bushes in the back yard. There was no more familiar 
article in that room than the huge ball of homespun 
yarn, bristling with Mammy's shining knitting-needles, 
by which were always suspended stockings in every 
conceivable stage of progress. She knitted only at 
''odd times." That meant if she was not smoothing 
somebody's refractory curls, or mending a tell-tale 
rent in somebody else's garments, or wiping the 
tears from a pair of childish eyes, or soothing 
the pangs of disappointment against her sympathizing 
bosom, she was plying her needles with a musical 
click that frequently assumed the proportions of a 
" buzz." Mammy was a guileful old soul. One of her 
favorite ruses to prevent our importunities for some- 
thing to eat between meals was to extract a solemn 
promise of mute patience from us while she knit so 
many rounds in the "ribbing," the honesty of the bar- 



MAMMY. 135 

gain to be left to our own calculations ; our reward — 
the coveted refreshment. In the absorbing interest of 
watching her swift speeding needles and counting the 
probationary rounds, the pangs of imaginary hunger 
would be dissipated and Mammy's end gained. Or 
else some childish peccadillo must be atoned for by 
the culprit's confinement in a chair close to her side 
until she turned the heel or narrowed a toe. If the 
croquet balls were clinking on the lawn beyond the 
pomegranate bushes, or the pecan trees were being 
thrashed in the hollow, the turning of that heel or the 
narrowing of that toe rivaled the bed of Procrustes in 
power to torture. But it was oftenest at night, when 
Mammy sat by the shaded lamp in the nursery, the 
cynosure of half a dozen pairs of sleepless little eyes, 
whose lids would not down simply because their rebel- 
lious owners had to go to bed by the clock, that the 
shining needles flew most uninterruptedly,furnishing a 
metallic accompaniment to the droning song or the 
weird story with which she beguiled us into drowsi- 
ness. It was a remarkable coincidence that Mammy's 
stories always embodied a prolix description of the 
especial sort of ill-doing that had overtaken any one 
of us that day, with a vivid portraiture of the awful 
catastrophe such evil tendencies must inevitably lead 
to if persevered in. All this to explain why Mammy's 
blue-yarn stockings are inextricably mixed up with 
the tenderest recollections of childhood. 

I do not think it ever occurred to us to speculate 
on what became of Mammy every night after we went 
to sleep. I think we had a vague impression that she 
was wiped out, like a sum on the blackboard, until we 



136 MAMMY. 

needed her again next morning. We could no more 
conceive of her leading an existence separate from 
ours than we could conceive of ours separated from 
hers, and that was manifestly impossible. Another 
one of our unshakable convictions concerning this 
central object in our5^oung lives was that Mammy was 
the victim of unappeasable hunger, and no meal of 
our own was fittingly concluded without the selection 
of some choice bits to be carried in to her. The pur- 
veyor of a slice of sweet-potato pie or a buttered hot 
waffle was generally held by her in special esteem, and 
became an object of gnawing envy to all the others. 

How inextricably the lines of her life were entangled 
with those of her " w'ite folks," and will be until death 
them do part ! Her tears fell as hot and fast as any 
one's on the baby's little waxen face when she lay on 
a white-draped table in the parlor, that still summer 
day, her tiny hands folded peacefully about an un- 
opened rosebud from the ''bridal" rose-bush under 
mother's window. And how lost she seemed for so 
many mornings after that quiet burying in the family 
graveyard, in one corner of the garden ! It had been 
her custom to take the baby from the arms of its other 
mother at earliest peep of dawn and transport her to 
the nursery, where its preternatural energy in the mat- 
ter of early rising was used as the text for our con- 
fusion. And it was around the baby sitting in Mam- 
my's lap, solemn-eyed but gravely approving, that the 
rest of us performed that erratic and turbulent cer- 
emony which we called dressing. We all missed the 
baby, but long after it had faded into nothing more 
than a sweet far-away memory to our faithless young 



MAJ/A/y. 137 

souls, Mammy still plucked the weeds from among 
the violets that covered her grave, and kept within 
bounds the straggHng branches of the tea-rose that 
shaded it. That special corner of the family burying 
ground was consecrated in her eyes forever. When the 
war broke out, how monstrous it seemed to her that any 
of her w'ite folks should have to go '' soldiering " and 
leave their comfortable homes to be made food for pow- 
der. The casus belli was too far removed from her 
comprehension at first to have any bearing on the mat- 
ter. Those two boys, Al and Fred, who strutted up and 
down the long gallery so consequentially on the 
morning of their departure for Richmond, were her 
" chillun." She had stood side by side with their 
own mother in ministering to their welfare from the 
cradle to that monstrous hour. She had stood be- 
tween them and parental wrath a countless number of 
times. She had surreptitiously conveyed nourishment 
to them through the transom over the door often and 
often when that " heartless governess " of theirs had 
locked them up for bad lessons. And when Al had 
made his first essay in duck-hunting, at the tender 
age of eleven, who but Mammy had tramped across 
miles of marshy ground to the duck-pond to make 
sure that the first discharge of his gun had not bespat- 
tered the fields with his precious brains, as she solemnly 
predicted ? And here they were, men ; men with 
soldiers* caps set jauntily over their bright brown 
curls, and two rows of shining brass buttons on the 
breasts of their new gray jackets. They challenged 
her to a compliment, she gave them instead tearful 
smiles ; then suddenly turning away from them she 



138 MAMMY. 

disappeared within doors to return pretty soon with a 
black quart bottle, whose cork she was securing 
tightly by pressing a cap of softened yellow bees' 
wax all about it. This she extended to Al with an 
hysterical sob : 

" Take it, son. H'it's balsam apple and whisky. 
It's mighty good for cuts en bruises, en ef my chillun 
git hurt, Mammy won' be nigh 'em to ten' 'em lak she 
wants t' be, but you jes' rub dat balsam apple inter 
de place right quick en h'it mebbe be de savin' ub yo' 
libes, son. If you git out'n it, write to Mammy for 
some mo'." 

It was Mammy's final service to the boys who never 
came back ! That night she swept the yard fast and 
furiously. It was a sure sign of deep and uncontrol- 
lable emotion on her part. In the years of our unrea- 
soning childhood we had always shrunk from her in 
temporary distrust after one of these episodes. We 
had known her to neglect every thing for short inter- 
vals, while she betook herself to the back yard, where 
the ground was bare of grass and beaten hard by the 
constant passage of feet from the outside offices to 
the big yard, where, with her round broom, made 
rudely of brushwood tied together, she would sweep 
and sweep until the dead silence of late night crept 
over the premises. We could hear the scratching of 
her brush-broom, and the lights would be put out in 
the kitchen, and the dogs up in the quarters would 
bark in that desultory, disjointed fashion that bespeaks 
slumber disturbed, and the stars would come out and 
dimly illuminate the tremulous apex of Mammy's agi- 
tated turban, and we children would finally creep into 



MAMMY. 139 

bed, assisted by mother, where we would sobbingly 
condole with each other over the calamity of Mammy's 
being a crazy woman, and would be correspondingly 
surprised next morning on opening our eyes timidly 
to find her in her normal condition. No one ever re- 
ferred to these volcanic eruptions. For a day or two, 
perhaps, Mammy's manner to us would be very meek 
and slightly tinged with apology, and we were not 
slow to recognize the fact that temporarily we had the 
upper hand of her ; but things would promptly read- 
just themselves on the old basis. In later years we 
came to understand these periodic " tantrums" as the 
only vent for a nature naturally impulsive and vehe- 
ment, which, by circumstances denied the safety-valve 
of words, took refuge in violent and continuous action 
that left her physically exhausted and morally be- 
calmed. 

Before the war the broad tide of life and action on 
the plantation was, as it were, simply tributary to the 
narrower and deeper current that had its flow and ebb 
in the " big house." This made it possible for those 
who ministered most directly to that deeper current 
to lead dual lives of entire unlikeness. Even Mammy 
led her dual life, as we children came to under- 
stand, when we got older, with a sort of resentful 
surprise. We had known always that the "Tildy" 
who was celebrated in the quarters as being the cham- 
pion shouter at '^ meetin' " and the best cotton-picker 
on the place was privileged to address our Mammy as 
*' Marmy," and that Prince, who played the fiddle on 
Saturday night for the people to dance by, and who 
excelled in patting an accompaniment to old Sandy's 



I40 MAMA/V. 

bones, shared that high privilege with her, but these 
were grown-up people who rarely came to the yard 
for any purpose, and our knowledge of them was 
slight ; and we knew also that when our daily votive 
offerings of sweet-potato pie, buttered hot waffles, 
mangoes, or baked turtle increased in embarrassing 
quantity, Mammy would pile them up on one end of 
the nursery mantel with the remark that ^' she'd tek 
'em home, honey, to de ol' man ; " indeed, perhaps 
our information concerning Mammy's other life in- 
cluded the knowledge that Uncle Dave, who was so 
badly crippled with rheumatism that he could only sit 
in the sun under the sycamore tree that shaded the 
blacksmith's shop in the quarters, and make huge bas- 
kets for the cotton-pickers, was Mammy's " ol' man." 
But beyond marveling at any one's using the posses- 
sive pronoun to such an uncanny-looking object, our 
interest in Uncle Dave never extended. What was he 
to Hecuba or Hecuba to him ? We discovered what, 
in a startling fashion. Mammy was sitting by the 
open window when we opened our eyes one morning, 
not knitting, simply looking out of the window with a 
far-away gaze, as she smoothed her white, cross-barred 
apron over her knees with restless hands. All the 
sweet scents and sounds of spring time in the country 
came to our awakening senses through the open win- 
dow behind her. The purple clusters of a Pride of 
China that grew close up to it were swaying to and 
fro and tapping the raised sash with their fragrant 
petals. We could see the orchard from where we lay 
and the great snowy banks of the plum blossoms. 
The hens and the ducks and the geese were engaged 



MAMA/Y. 14* 

in their matutinal squabble over the tray of clabber 
that Aunt Lily, the milk woman, placed before them 
the first thing every morning. We could hear Sam 
whistling at the wood-pile, where he was cutting wood 
for the kitchen stove, with those ringing blows of his 
sharp ax that made the big white ash-wood chips we 
were so fond of gathering up in our aprons to fill 
Aunt Rose's chip-box with, in a corner of the kitchen. 
We could hear the milk falling with a musical tinkle 
into the tin bucket Aunt Lily always kept for the 
" strippings " she defrauded the bleating calves of. 
Every thing was bright, and brisk, and comforting 
that morning except Mammy, and we marveled at it 
and wondered uneasily if she was going to sweep the 
yard that day, and "going crazy" again. 

She turned her eyes on us when she discovered that 
we were lazily waiting to be ordered up, and said in a 
plaintive tone altogether new in our experience of 
her : " Git up, my sweeties, an' let Mammy dress you. 
Don' pester none dis mawnin', kase Mammy's heart's 
mouty so'; de han' uv de Lawd ben laid on her heavy 
sence las' night." Then she wiped her dear old eyes 
furtively on a corner of the plaid handkerchief, which 
she wore folded across her bosom, and got up to pour 
the water into the wash-hand-basin that she always 
put into a chair for our greater convenience, sighing 
ponderously the while. 

No cherubs of recent importation from celestial 
heights could have behaved m.ore perfectly than we 
did that morning, moving under the shadow of Mam- 
my's unexplained sorrow. I fancy we thought it 
rested entirely with ourselves if Mammy should pass 



14^ AIAJl/A/V. 

through this mysterious ordeal without recourse to 
her broom. Not that the mystery was of her making, 
for as soon as the family breakfast was concluded, 
and her " w'ite folks " were at leisure to listen to her 
tale of woe without unseemly interruptions of any 
sort, she told it all, and I think the tableau we formed 
about her, as she stood before our mother with her 
hands folded pathetically over her white apron, would 
have furnished good material for one of Rogers's 
groups, to be called '' Bereavement," or, perhaps 
better still, " Sympathy " — as the sympathy was, in 
our crude estimation, largely in excess of the bereave- 
ment. 

" My ol' man done lef me, Miss," she began, drop- 
ping a courtesy that brought the hem of her short 
blue plaid dress into contact with the carpet ; " he's 
gone to Vicksburg. De folks tol' 'im he could git a 
guv'ment mule en ten acres er groun' by goin' arter 
it, en he's done gone. My ol' man warn' much 'count, 
but de cabin's sorter lonesome widout him." 

Here Mammy paused decorously to receive in dig- 
nified silence the condolences of her w'ite folks, which 
were rendered without stint, and the youngest mem- 
ber of our circle, never having yet experienced any 
affliction that cut sugar could not ameliorate, slipped 
off to the dining-room to procure a supply of that 
sort of comfort for our bereaved Mammy. 

" An' dat ain' all," she resumed presently, as if eco- 
nomically minded in dispensing her bad news. 
" Prince done gone wid 'im, Miss — Prince, dat triflin' 
rapscallion er mine dat wouldn' know w'at t' do wid a 
guv'ment mule w'en he git him. But Prince were a 



MAMMY. 143 

handy one wid de fiddle an' de bow, he were. I 'low 
dere won't be much dancin' er Saterday nights in de 
quarters now Prince done tuk hisseff off en lef his ol* 
Mammy — lak Rachel in de Bible was lef." 

Another pause, during which mother poured in all 
the balm her own tender nature could concoct on 
such short notice, and more saccharine consolation 
was thrust into Mammy's apron pocket. 

" But dar's mo' yet," said Mammy, lifting her 
turbaned head as if she were rising to a sense of the 
dignity of her position ; " Tildy's gone too. I 'lows 
she don' wan' no guv'ment mule, ner no ten acres er 
groun'. I 'lows w'at she do want is a good lambastin', 
dat w'at she a-pinin' for. But de cabin's mouty lone- 
some. Miss. It's empty. An' it sorter hurts my 
feelin's to see de half-finished baskit de ol' man was 
workin' on w'en dis fool noshon struck him. An' I 
don' lak to look at Prince's fiddle case nuther, Miss 
(he tuk his fiddle 'long), and dar's Tildy's hoe layin' 
jus' whar she drap it w'en she pick up en' went 'way 
widout even tellin' her po' ol' Mammy good-by. Dey 
stole 'way yistiday, whiles I was up to de big house, 
jus' lak a fief in de night. De han' uv de Lawd is laid 
heavy on me, my sweeties." 

Thus appealed to directly, the fountain of our tears 
burst forth and flowed in such alarming volume that 
Mammy became comforter in her turn. But that 
night she swept the back yard fast and furiously, and 
the next next — and the night — then she stood 
once more in the midst of us and discharged a bomb- 
shell directly into the hearts of the children who loved 
her. To her credit be it said that the bomb-shell 



144 MaMMV. 

plowed as deeply into her own tender soul as Into 
ours. 

" It cyarn be holped, Mist'ess," she began without 
preamble ; " I'se 'bleeged t' go too. I'se ben studyin' 
'bout it tell I done turn ag'in' my vittles ; but I cyarn 
stay behin' w'en my ol' man en Prince en 'Tildy done 
gone. De cabin's so lonesome uv nights, Mist'ess, 
dat de buzzin' uv de 'skeeters soun's as loud as de 
quarter-bell ringin' fur gittin'-up time. My heart 's 
jes' tored in two, but I'se 'bleeged to go." 

Nature triumphed, and Mammy went. Her going 
gave us an opportunity to learn how elastic the human 
heart is, and how quickly young lives can be read- 
justed to new conditions. In those eventful days so 
much happened out of routine that men and women 
comforted themselves somewhat like surf-bathers, 
bracing themselves anew for each inevitable billow as 
it rolled toward them in quick succession and resist- 
less force. So it was that the grief created by 
Mammy's going was soon whelmed in greater grief 
for the cutting short of fresh young lives, and when 
the billows ceased to roll and the long sullen calm of 
despair settled over the lives of those she had left 
behind her, we had grown used to the vacant chair in 
the nursery and to the absence of her busy ministra- 
tions, and sorrowed for her in a chastened fashion. 

The war was over, and the heads of our diminished 
household were busy in the task of reconstruction. 

Not that broad political reconstruction that involved 
a sudden and violent declaration of universal brother- 
hood or a cordial acceptance of startling social- 
equality theories, but the pathetic reconstruction of a 



Mammy. m5 

home from the scattered debris of a wreck. The 
task was a weary one. We younger members felt our 
own inadequacy in tliose days that called for tactful 
heads and skillful hands, while we had nothing but 
willing hearts to offer. 

Through three seasons the China-trees in the back 
yard had tapped the nursery windows with their 
swinging purple censers and the plum-trees had shed 
their fragrant snow upon the brown earth of the 
orchard since that spring morning when Mammy had 
told us with tears in her voice that the Lord had laid 
His hand heavily upon her, when she walked quietly 
among us again — not bowed with sorrow and torn 
with conflicting emotions, as when we had last seen 
her, but with her head proudly erect and a new look 
in her eyes which we had to learn how to interpret. 
It was Mammy, and it wasn't Mammy. In place of 
the familiar blue plaid dress, with its unmatched 
plaids, she was clad in rusty silk that found no favor 
in our eyes. The conical turban had been displaced 
by a bonnet of insignificant proportions which had an 
incurable propensity to retreat to the nape of her 
neck. But after all it was only Mammy in a new 
case. It took her a very short while to convince us 
that she had brought us back the same unselfish 
heart and the same pure, wholesome, loyal nature. 

" I'se come home t' live en die, Mist'ess," she said, 
placidly untying the bonnet-strings that threatened 
strangulation. '' I done my duty by my ol' man t' de 
las'. He's safe in glory, en Prince, he's a barbering in 
Vicksburg. Tildy, she's married ; don't ax me no 
mo' 'bout her. An', Mist'ess " — here to our intense 



146 MAMMY. 

amazement Mammy brought forth a brand-new pocket- 
book and displayed its crisp contents proudly — 
" yere's my ol' man's bounty. I hates to 'fess it, but 
arter he come into freedom 'it seemed t' cure his 
rheumatiz, en he med a tol'able fightin' sold'er, dey 
tell me ; leastways dey pay me up his bounty money 
lak gentlemens ; en, Mist'ess, as soon es I git it, I say 
to myseff, dar, now, nigger, you kin go home and holp 
Mist'ess en Marster out 'n a tight place. It's yourn, 
honey, ef you'll have it. I save mos' all of 'it fer 
you en de chillun." 

And she does help us out of many a " tight place,'* 
but not with her " old man's bounty money." 



CHAPTER XII. 



A BREEZY OPTIMIST. 



NO'THING would have quicker excited a burst of 
that deep-hmged, infectious laughter from the 
broad chest of " the General," for which he is famous 
all over his State, than to hear himself called " a pub- 
lic benefactor." It is without design on his part, or 
suspicion of the fact, that he is one. His breezy 
laughter is itself sufficient to dissipate the megrims 
from the most melancholy, and one cordial grip of his 
shapely hand is sufficient to increase a man's bump of 
self-esteem for an indefinite period of time. His uni- 
versal cheerfulness and persistent optimism are some- 
what trying to those of his neighbors who are biliously 
bent upon considering that the country has gone to 
the dogs beyond hope of redemption, but they act as 
buoys to those easily depressed souls who are quite 
willing to look on the bright side of things if some 
one will kindly relieve them of the trouble of finding 
the bright side for themselves. Those who maintain 
that the liver is the seat of good temper give the 
General no credit for his broad charity, his open- 
handed generosity, or his optimistic tendencies. They 
are the natural and inevitable consequences of a liver 
in good working order. 



14^ A BREEZY OPTIMIST. 

If it is true, as. Emerson says, that *' the true test of 
civiHzation is not the census, nor the size of cities, nor 
the crops, but the kind oi man the country turns out," 
then a high order of civiHzation might be inferred 
from such a product as the General. Although his 
voice has been heard in the legislative halls of his 
State, and he makes his home in cities, nature seems 
to have stamped her own manufacturer's mark all over 
his imposing person. The fresh breath of country 
meadows seems to exhale from his sound lungs, which 
have never known the defilement of tobacco or strong 
drink. The elastic vigor of the chamois is in the vig- 
orous limbs he exercises with contemptuous independ- 
ence of wind or weather. The clearness of crystal 
lakes is in his great limpid eyes. The russet of 
Nature's autumn tints is on his bronzed and ruddy 
cheeks, and her sunshine floods his heart. No one 
ever thinks of applying the adjective " handsome " to 
the General. He is simply big and breezy and healthy, 
and when you have been with him a little while you 
feel as one does on raising a window in some heated 
room to let in a whiff of fresh air. He leaves behind 
him a sense of physical refreshment, pleasant even if 
transient. He traces his own physical strength back 
to the days when he used to ride to mill every Satur- 
day with a bag of grist beifore him on the saddle, and 
when he was a sort of amphibious biped, spending 
about as much time in the water of the pebbly creek 
that cut his fathe-r's plantation in two as he did on 
shore. The General is a man of fluctuating fortunes, 
and has experienced the sensation of " being broke " 
several times in a long and speculative career. But 



A BREEZY OPTIMIST. i49 

looking back, he can date an improved condition of 
liis affairs from each disaster. There is a good deal 
of comfort in being an optimist. He was born into 
the purple — that is (in the vernacular), to a planter's 
life of ease and security — but his powers of expansion 
were too great for him to remain in the purple without 
straining that royal garment badly at the seams. If 
his lot had been cast in Gotham, instead of in an 
obscure agricultural region, he would have become a 
conspicuous figure on Wail Street ; but that vent for 
speculative genius being denied him, his talents ex- 
pended themselves in safer channels, with varying 
results, through the medium of which he has found 
himself at different periods of his life the richest and 
the poorest man of his own acquaintence. 

His belief in a glorious future of his own State is 
not to be shaken by facts or figures. Many a poor 
tax-burdened owner of wild lands has had cause to 
rejoice in this sublime faith of the General's. He has 
the courage of his convictions, and has bought up 
these wild lands as a speculation, until his tax-list is 
something stupendous to contemplate. Only an 
infinitesimal proportion of these lands are tillable or 
make any returns, but he pays taxes on them all with 
the comforting conviction that some of these days he 
will get it all back tenfold. 

It is delightful to hear him demonstrate, with what 
sounds like irrefragable arguments, the brilliant future 
that j?nist, in the march* of events, come to that sec- 
tion of the South. He will convince you (unless you 
are word-proof) that you will yet see a network of rail- 
roads where now you only see dense woods in which 



150 A BREEZY OF TJ MIST. 

the "razor-back" hogs root for mast and luxuriate 
on the frost-sweetened persimmon ; that the shabby 
little river-side town, which now boasts its three shops 
devoted to miscellaneous stock and its drug store and 
post-office all in one, within a decade or two, will expand 
into a mart that shall make St. Louis at one end and 
New Orleans at the other tremble for their commercial 
laurels. With the positiveness of a seer he will tell 
you of the mineral wealth lying imprisoned within the 
soil of his native State, only awaiting the open sesame 
of the capitalist to make the fortune of the poorest and 
meanest among the dwellers over these hidden beds of 
iron and coal ; and whether or not any of the Gener- 
al's gorgeous prophecies shall ever be fulfilled, perhaps 
no one will ever be the worse for thinking that such 
pleasant and desirable things might befall. 

The General would be invaluable as an immigrant 
agent for his state, for without doing any violence to 
his conscience, which is as clean and nice a conscience 
as ever dwelt in a man's breast, he could and would 
paint things so glowingly that the restless and dissat- 
isfied of every clime would flock to his El Dorado of 
the future in eager swarms. Not tjiat the General is 
consciously given to word-painting, or that he would 
lead a lamb astray purposely ; but, seen through the 
medium of his hopeful disposition and shown by him 
in that rosy tint with which he invests every possibil- 
ity his cheerful imagination entertains, nothing but the 
desirable points in any ventufe acquire prominence. 

No calamity is ever purely a calamity in his estima- 
tion. If there is a rift in the cloud-racks that shut the 
sun out from every other eye, he will detect the rift 



A BREEZY OPTIMIST, 151 

and be the first one to predict the return of the sun- 
shine. Overflows, of which he has had repeated ex- 
perience, are simply blessings in disguise, if only men 
were wise enough to see it so. The deposit of alluvi- 
um left by the receding waters is "just what the land 
needs, and it is never healthier in the county than in 
over-flow years." He admits that it is rather rough on 
the stock, and the owners of the stock too, but if men 
would stop leveeing and making vain and costly experi- 
ments to keep the river within bounds, which he is posi- 
tive can not be done, and would put all that dirt and la- 
bor into the erection of mounds, to save the cattle on in 
high water, an over flow would be a thing to be encoun- 
tered with philosophic composure. If the General could 
have had his way, there never would have been any rup- 
ture of the Union. Each party would have minded its 
own business and every body would have gone on being 
serene and happy, according to the dictates of his own 
individual conscience, but since the irrepressible con- 
flict came to a climax and relieved him of the responsi- 
bility of several scores of slaves, he is convinced that 
it is the best thing that could possibly have happened 
for the country, and now she will have an opportunity 
to show what her resources are, which invariably brings 
the genial optimist back to the supposed mineral re- 
sources under his feet. No public enterprise of any 
description is ever undertaken in his neighborhood 
without being submitted to his good sound judgment. 
His optimism does not interfere with the calmness of 
his views, and his opinion always "carries weight with 
it, although the recipient may deem it necessary to 
make some allowances for his sanguine way of look- 



152 A BREEZY OPTIMIST. 

ing at things. His name generally heads the list of 
any and every subscription that -may be started, with- 
out any undue curiosity on his part as to the worthi- 
ness of the object. He would rather give relief to an 
unworthy object than risk overlooking a worthy one. 
That he is often taken in, needs not to be said. 

The General's home is the exponent of himself. It 
is big and breezy and solidly comfortable. There are 
no stiff chairs to be found under its shingled roof, or 
any formal reception rooms to appall the visitor with a 
sense of the owner's local importance or his own social 
inferiority. It laughs with good cheer as the General 
laughs with good-humor. There are flowers all around 
it and within it. Individually he prizes a fine aspara- 
gus bed or a thrifty showing of burr artichoke bushes 
far above the costly roses and orchids his " women 
folks " are perpetually experimenting in ; but whatever 
gives pleasure to the weaker sex has fully vindicated 
its own worthiness in his eyes. He is a lover of fine 
horses and a good judge of them. He seldom sub- 
mits to the confinement of the family coach, but on 
occasions when he appears in public with his " folks," 
it is generally in the character of an imposing and well- 
mounted outrider. His stables are never so full of 
harness or saddle-horses but that -room can be found 
for one more in case a '' trader " should stop in 
town with a fine lot of animals from the blue-grass 
stock farms of Kentucky. Whether he purchases or 
not, so long as the horse-trader is within reach, so long 
may the General be seen in the neighborhood of his 
stables, either complacently tilted back in a splint- 
bottomed chair on the outside of the stables, passing 



A BREEZY OPTIMIST. 153 

judgment on each animal as it is trotted or paced or 
walked up and down the dusty road for his inspection, 
or negotiating a " swap," as much for the sake of nov- 
elty as for any thing else. The General likes frequent 
change of style, but the horses must all be big and 
strong, with good staying powers, for he travels over 
many miles of rough country road, superintending the 
interests of several plantations and a cotton-seed oil 
mill, of which he is one of the owners, and the erection 
of some cottages on some of his town lots, and dear 
knows what else. He has a great many irons in the 
fire. 

Some one has said, '* Tell me what you eat and I will 
tell you what you are." This would be an unusually 
difficult undertaking in the General's case. He feeds 
more in accord with the substantial baronial banquet- 
ing notions of merrie old England than within pre- 
scribed modern limits. He has nothing but scoffing 
laughter and words of scorn for people who are con- 
scious of their digestive organs. A mere description 
of one of his breakfasts, especially in the winter sea- 
son, would throw a dietist into a fit of dyspepsia. No 
gruelly compounds for him. No oatmeal or cracked 
wheat — "brain-feeders" — find place on his handsome 
table damask. At that meal will be the General's 
wife, sitting behind the big tray on which glistens the 
old silver coffee service that her mother began house- 
keeping with. Looming conspicuously among the 
cups and saucers around her will be one huge cup 
brilliantly ornamented and protected with a mustache 
fender. That is the General's own. It holds twice as 
much as any of the others, and will perhaps be replen- 



154 A BREEZY OPTIMIST. 

ished more than once, for it requires a liberal amount 
of the rich dark fluid that comes in a clear stream 
from the spout of the old silver coffee-pot to wash 
down the fried ham, boiled squab, Welsh rabbit, fried 
corn, hot rolls, and griddle-cakes, submerged in " syro 
de batterie " which go to form his usual morning 
rations. Perhaps it is well for the liver, which is pre- 
sumed to be the fountain- seat of all his geniality, that 
before he shall have finished breakfast ^' Charlie," his 
great gray gelding, with the dapples all over his shin- 
ing flanks, will be brought to the front door saddled 
for his morning tour of the fields. It never occurs to 
him that this open-air exercise is of vital importance 
to him physically. His meals are never wholesome or 
unwholesome ; they are simply palatable, enjoyable or 
otherwise. 

He will tell you he has no time for reading, notwith- 
standing which, if you should happen to call at his 
house of a pleasant afternoon, you will find him com- 
fortably dozing in the hammock on his front gallery, 
while the floor around him will be carpeted with all the 
weeklies and as many dailies as can be procured 
before their contents become absolutely flat, stale and 
unprofitable. He is conversant with the current affairs 
of all the civilized globe, but as for literature /^r se^ 
he leaves that to his women folks, and is reprehensibly 
ignorant on the subject of all the novelists who have 
risen in his own time and strutted their taper-lighted 
way into the limbo of the forgotten without attracting 
a moment's notice from him. '' Life's too short to 
keep up with them all," he says, with cheerful resig- 
nation to his own ignorance. 



A BREEZY OPTIMIST. 155 

Lest you should fall into the grave error of coming 
to think of the General as nothing more or better than 
a well-fed, good-tempered animal, his " affair " must 
be put on record. No one ever speaks of it in his 
presence. He is no swaggerer, no boaster, and where 
a smaller man might take pleasure in telling of his 
own prowess, he maintains a simple and manly reti- 
cence. Some one did once undertake to chaff him on 
his affair, but one look from his blazing eyes shriv- 
eled the flippant words like burned paper. But his 
friends like to repeat the story. 

Among the many irons that have at various times 
kept the General on active duty was a newspaper once, 
of which he was proprietor, but not editor. As pro- 
prietor he held himself personally responsible for 
all that went into its columns. This responsibility 
has assumed a very grave complexion on more than 
one occasion, notably in the case which resulted in 
the affair in question. A braggart of doubtful ante- 
cedents and more than doubtful record took umbrage 
at something that appeared in the paper for which the 
General stood sponsor. A vast volume of fire and 
smoke (more of the latter, doubtless, than of the 
former) was kindled by this little matter. The whole 
concern was threatened with annihilation, and the 
editor, who was physically rather a meager specimen, 
trembled in his brown cloth gaiters, or would have 
done so if the General had not promptly and decisively 
taken the whole matter on his own broad shoulders. 
The insulted party breathed forth licry threats of 
vengeance with such vehemence that the General's 
friends besought him to be on his guard. He laughed 



156 A BREEZY OPTIMIST. 

his cheeriest into their concerned faces, but consented 
to burden himself with a pistol, which he carried in 
his capacious hip pocket. He was seen oftener than 
usual in the places where his antagonist would most 
likely be found, but without ever encountering him. 
It was only through report that he could tell whether 
or not the fires of his wrath showed any signs of burn- 
ing themselves out. Report told him that outraged 
virtue was still on the " rampage." So long as that 
was the case the General's hip-pocket continued to 
bulge. He had begun to grow bored with the 
whole affair, when, sauntering by a public-house on 
one of the main streets, he heard a note of excited 
warning hurled into his ears from a man on the oppo- 
site side of the street, simultaneously with the whiz- 
zing sound of a bullet that passed through the crown 
of his soft felt hat. With the swiftness of an enraged 
tiger he faced about in time to see the man who had 
tried to shoot him in the back leap behind a sheltering 
tree-box that gave him a temporary advantage. The 
General's hip-pocket no longer bulged. No one could 
tell how he managed it, for it was all done before the 
nearest loafer, running at his greatest speed, could get 
to the spot. When he did get there, it was to see the 
swaggerer prone on the sidewalk, where he was pin- 
ioned by one of the General's substantial knees. His 
loaded pistol was in his right hand. He had never 
touched the trigger. Patiently, wordlessly, only show- 
ing his appreciation of the cowardliness of the attack 
by his blazing eyes and short, quick breathing, he held 
his would-be murderer until a crowd had gathered 
about them ; then he addressed him in a voice that 



A BREEZY OPTIMIST. 157 

trembled a little from passion in spite of him : '' I 
could have killed you, and you know it. You know 
you deserve it, too, for the earth would be rid of a 
cowardly scoundrel if I did. I've kept you here to 
make you beg my pardon before all these people for 
everything you've said, and for what you tried to do 
just now. After you've begged my pardon you've got 
to acknowledge before all these people that the para- 
graph you've been playing the bully over was true to 
the minutest particular. After you've done that, you 
can go." Lifting his conquered foe to his feet by a 
firm grip on his collar, not without shaking him 
slightly, very much as he might have shaken a puppy 
rescued from drowning, he restored his own weapon 
to his pocket, pulled his waistcoat carefully down 
over his portly person, and calmly awaited the issue. 
It was all that the most exacting could demand in 
shape of an apology, at the close of which the Gen- 
eral turned from the gaping crowd with a contempt- 
uous exclamation and then walked rapidly away, 
anxious to reach his home in advance of any dis- 
agreeable rumors. On the way he met a little crying 
child. It was too young to convey any more inform- 
ation than that it was lost. In his great strong arms 
he lifted it up, and holding it close to the breast that 
had just been heaving with the hottest passions that 
can stir the human pulse, he soothed its terror and 
told it to point to home. Following the tiny index 
finger, he presently found himself once more face to 
face with his foe as he reached a certain gate, 
through which the dust-begrimed and crestfallen man 
was hurrying with down-dropped head, and hearing 



15S A BREEZY OPTIMIST. 

SO withdrawn from what was passing around him, 
that the child in the General's arms lisped the name 
of " father " several times in the eager joy of recog- 
nition before he raised his sullen face to see his baby- 
infolded softly in the arms that had just closed with 
him in a struggle for life and death. It was rather a 
disagreeable surprise to the General, who, not caring 
to prolong the discomfort of the situation for the 
other man, hastily put the child on its wayward little 
feet and withdrew much more precipitately than he 
would have done perhaps if the muzzle of a pistol had 
been again pointed at his back. 

But it is not through the medium of such disagreea- 
ble occurrences that the General has come to be 
regarded, locally, as a sort of unlaureled hero. It is 
because of his universal readiness to fling himself into 
a breach wherever found, and his absolute self-posses- 
sion under the most trying emergencies, that men 
place such implicit confidence in him. What if his 
tendency to paint things couleur de rose does some- 
times beguile him from the severe line of rigid verac- 
ity into the flowery by-paths of hyperbole ? When 
strong facts are demanded he can furnish his full 
share of them. 

Where women are concerned the General has abso- 
lutely no stamina. A lisping girl child can win her 
way with him as readily as a shrew of advanced years. 
The weakness of the sex appeals to his strength, their 
helplessness to his magnanimity, and that is why the 
General's wife has just cause of complaint concerning 
piles of useless books and incongruous trifles that are 
scattered about her handsome parlors, bought by the 



A BREEZY OPTIMIST. 159 

General from agents who were " women, poor things," 
and he could easier face a cannon than say '•'■ no " to 
woman or child. 

In the leading Episcopal church of his town the 
General has a pew for which he pays a high rental. 
The list of names of subscribers to the minister's 
salary is headed by his. Churches are good things to 
patronize. They are conservators of the peace. 
Whatever appeals to him in the interest of good citi- 
zenship is sure of ready and substantial support, but 
he has an outspoken horror of creeds and creedsmen. 
He does not believe that the Almighty Maker of the 
earth, which he has found such a pleasant abiding- 
place, can possibly be meditating vengeance against 
a lot of insignificant worms, who are no more to 
Him than the motes in a ray of sunshine ; but he does 
believe that there is mercy and comfort somewhere for 
whosoever acts well his part here below, bearing in 
mind that to so act one must go out liberally, help- 
fully, unselfishly to those who stumble by the way. 
So far as in him lies he is his brother's keeper, and if 
the world furnishes thousands of a nobler type of man- 
hood than the General's, it undoubtedly furnishes 
tens of thousands of a poorer type. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

lee's wife. 

IF it has ever been your fortune to be traveling down 
South, through one of those exclusively agricul- 
tural districts which, in the very order of things, pre- 
clude the existence of towns, let us say within the 
limits of Arkansas, and have found yourself on one 
bank of the swift-running Mississippi River, with no 
visible means of transportation to the other, and have 
been moved to inquire of the nearest native how you 
are to proceed on your way, the native, in nine cases 
out of ten, will instruct you to " holler across," or, 
more probably, will affably undertake to do your 
" hollering " for you. Until then, perhaps, your un- 
trained eye had discovered nothing on the other 
side of the river but a dense wall of foliage of grad- 
uated greens, from the pale tender shade of the 
foot-high shrubs that stand ankle-deep in the muddy 
water of the river, on and up through larger growths 
and darker greens, until the universal cottonwood 
that clothes the uncultivated shores achieves the dig- 
nity of the sapling and stands in serried ranks, tall, 
slim, symmetrical, useless. But closer and more pur- 
poseful inspection will show you a break in the woods 
— a sort of three-sided opening, in which are a few acres 
of roughly cleared land, surrounded by a fence whose 



LEFJS WIFE. i6i 

component parts are pleasingly indistinct at that dis- 
tance, a tiny little cabin, with a chimney of sticks and 
mud, through which thin blue smoke is escaping 
heavenward — but no boat. 

If you are by nature opposed to violent exercise, or 
have had any experience of "hollering across," you 
will prefer tipping one of the natives to straining your 
own incompetent lungs. The judicious display ^of a 
" four-bit " piece or the timely production of a piece 
of plug tobacco will induce the native to give voice in 
your behalf for an unlimited length of time. While 
listening to the melody of a stentorian " Whopee — 
who-pee, who-o-o-pe-e-e, fetch on yo' boat," launched 
from a perfect pair of lungs, through a capacious 
mouth, barricaded by a couple of huge horny black 
hands to prevent the air-sown sound from being dis- 
sipated, you will perhaps keep your eyes fixed on the 
little clearing opposite, in anxious speculation con- 
cerning the probable whereabouts of the harbor or the 
possibility of that unearthly yell evoking a boat and a 
boatman from the leaves and the twigs of the cotton- 
woods. The *' who-pees " (rising inflection) may have 
to be multiplied indefinitely to suit wind and weather, 
but the man on the other side is perhaps far more 
anxious to ferry you over than you are to be ferried, and 
when your human telephone cuts a final yell neatly in 
two, substituting for the last syllable a relieved " dar 
now," you rashly take it for granted that the period of 
waiting is almost over. The native will unintention- 
ally help on this delusion by the cheerful but un- 
founded assertion : *' You's all right now, boss. He 
done answer back. I 'lows I'll go back to my plow- 



1 62 I.EES WIFE. 

in','' with which he leaves you, after gratefully pocket- 
ing his hard-earned fee. 

If you take his word for it that you are all right, 
and keep your gaze fixed steadily on the clearing op- 
posite, you will presently see what looks like an insig- 
nificantly small boy saunter leisurely down to the 
water's edge with a pair of oars on his shoulders at a 
point where the foliage seems densest. He is a mile 
distant from you, and therefore has no means of 
judging of your state of mind. If he knew what a 
''staving" hurry you were in, he might possibly con- 
sent to " hustle up " a little. But the people who 
" holler across " for him are rarely ever in special 
haste to get to any given point, and it is impossible 
for him to divine at that distance, either from the cut 
of your coat or the savage displeasure of your coun- 
tenance, that you are not old Squire Rogers, or Colonel 
Ransom, or any of that lot of the initiated who read 
their papers, or whittle boats out of the bark of the 
fallen trees they occupy patiently while waiting, or 
serenely smoke the musquitoes away during the 
interim, or amuse themselves otherwise. Amusing 
yourself is purely optional ; the waiting is not. If 
you are new to the business, you will find some relief 
in speculatively watching the deliberate motions of the 
small boy after he has flung his oars into the boat, 
which you can outline now against the woody-back- 
ground. His deliberation is novel in your experience 
and trying to your equanimity. You had rashly sup- 
posed that, given a man, a boat, a pair of oars, and 
the intimation of an expectant traveler on t'other side, 
some signs of immediate progress might not unreason- 



LEE'S WIFE. 163 

ably be looked for. If you are not new to the business, 
you will understand the groping attitude assumed by 
your ferryman after he has leisurely dispossessed 
himself of coat and vest, with neatness but not with 
dispatch. He is groping for something to " bail her 
out with." She stands chronically in need of being 
bailed out. Perhaps there is an empty lobster can or 
an untrustworthy tin basin under the seats somewhere. 
The basin is pretty sure to leak, but a rag torn from 
some part of his own apparel will readily correct that. 
He would have bailed her out the first thing in the 
morning if he had been sure of a call, but, in view of 
the facility with which she fills up again, it would have 
been time and labor thrown away on the mere chance 
of a passenger. It is some relief to your overwrought 
feelings, finally, to hear the clank of a chain, softened 
by the distance, by token of which you know that the 
little boat has actually slipped her moorings and is 
heading for the bank where you are chafing in impotent 
rage. 

When town calls unto town across the " Big Muddy " 
the call may be answered by a fussy little ** side- 
wheeler," which will ply from one side of the river to 
the other at stated periods, and with great ado over 
the task, sighing asthmatically, puffing fretfully, at 
each quick revolution of its small wheels, sending a 
shrilly querulous whistle ahead of it by a few rods to 
give notice of its eventful arrival. As a rule, the 
dingier the craft the more imposing the nomenclature, 
and if an " Empress " should be debased to transport- 
ing Texas beeves to market, or " Queen Titania " so 
fallen from her high estate as to be a fetcher and car- 



t64 LEE'S WIFE. 

rier of man and beast, it is to be regarded as an indica- 
tion of local prosperity. But the exigencies of the 
traveling public in the rural districts do not warrant 
so luxurious a medium of transit save occasionally ; 
hence the necessity for the hollering, the waiting, and 
all the rest of it. 

If, when the privilege of seating yourself in the 
long-waited-for boat is finally yours, you are at all dis- 
concerted by the exceeding wetness of the false floor 
under your feet, or by a certain sloppy sound beneath 
it, as the little skiff rolls slightly under the combined 
agencies of a stiff current and a pair of vigorously 
wielded oars, one look at the composed face of your 
ferryman will reassure you completely. Moreover, 
there is always the tin basin with its damp plug of white 
domestic. What more would you ? 

Your ferryman (who by the way is no boy at all, 
but a stalwart young man) will not initiate the talk, 
but you will find him responsive in his stolid fashion, 
and if before you separate you do not know as much 
as he does about the topography, geology, society, and 
politics of the county to which he is rapidly conveying 
you, the fault will be yours, not his. He is like a full 
well whose contents will not be brought to the surface 
voluntarily, but will promptly respond to the touch on 
the windjass. You can turn the windlass industriously 
without impeding the swift progress of the skiff. Your 
ferryman will talk as he rows, with unconscious 
strength and directness of aim, but with seeming 
indifference to the outcome. In return for much val- 
uable information you may thus obtain gratuitously 
it will go hard with him if he does not " size you up " 



LEE'S WIFE. ' 165 

before he parts with you in front of the little log-cabin 
he calls home, and satisfy himself without a word of 
direct inquiry whether you are a real-estate speculator 
come to look after a plantation that somebody is anx- 
ious to rid himself of, or a commission merchant 
alarmed about the prospect of getting back his " ad- 
vances," or an itinerant preacher engaged to preach in 
Mackey's empty storehouse next Sunday, or a fellow 
who professes to have discovered a dead-sure poison 
for cotton-worms, and is going to make a free experi- 
ment on somebody's crops. To you, the product of 
a city, perhaps, he, with his broad shoulders, slouching 
gait, bronzed face, keen, quick, glancing eye (as is the 
manner of eyes trained to woodcraft) ; with his slow- 
coming smile and imperturbable composure, seems but 
a degree removed mentally from the creatures of the 
dark woods that crowd so closely up about his 
unpainted cabin ; to him you, with your bleached 
skin, and trim apparel, and slender wrists, and rigid 
neckwear, and buttoned shoes, and general suggestive- 
ness of dependence upon the conveniences and com- 
forts of a high order of civilization, seem but a feeble 
exponent of the strength of body, freedom of action, 
and absolute independence of custom that constitute 
his conception of manliness. Perhaps your concep- 
tion of the higher possibilities his life might contain 
will lead you to waste much silent pity on him. There 
is a shrewdness of observation, a conciseness of ex- 
pression, and an indication of good common-sense 
about him that leads you into idle speculation as to 
what he might have been if accident of birth had 
located him differently. He never wastes time him- 



1 66 LEE'S WIFE. 

self in any such absurd fashion. There is too much 
to be done for that ; and in his own unhurrying way 
he gets through daily with what he considers momen- 
tous jobs. 

The little clearing, which grows ruder in effect as 
you approach it more nearly ; with the stubble of last 
year's corn-crop still standing in the ragged two-acre 
field ; with its fence of old rails pieced out here with a 
fallen tree, there with a lot of refuse from the drift- 
wood pile ; with the tumble-down chicken-house, and 
the close proximity of the pig-pen to the one window 
of the cabin ; with the ornate white front door to the 
house (fished from the river) contrasting curiously 
with the cypress boards that environ it : is a home to 
him in every sense of the word, and about and around 
the ragged fields and the absurd cabin they inclose, 
hover the ministering spirits of love and peace, clad 
in homespun, perhaps, and faring unsumptuously, but 
very real for all that. If you are a stranger, you will 
stare curiously at seeing the. ornate front door, with 
its incongruous silver-plated knob, open briskly when 
the ferryman flings his oars down with a clatter in the 
bottom of the boat, and offer to your view a young 
woman. She is plump and pretty, and looks neat, but 
not stylish, with that great hideous calico sun-bonnet 
coming far over her face. She will never outlive her 
curiosity concerning the people who cross. The sound 
of the boat's chain being flung round the sapling is 
sure to bring her to the door, with that good-natured 
free stare of hers. If you are not a stranger, you will 
need no one to tell you that the plump young woman 
in the calico sun-bonnet is '' Lee's wife," only an 



LEE'S WIFE. 167 

adjunct, you perceive, of your stalwart ferryman. No 
one ever calls her anything but Lee's wife, but in that 
connection Lee's name has had a halo of heroism 
cast about it which it would never otherwise have 
obtained. She does not look heroic as she stands 
there with her sleeves rolled up above her elbows, with 
a half-pared potato in one hand and a case-knife in 
the other, staring frankly at you as you toil through 
the heavy sand of the bank toward the cabin, and she 
would grow ruddier than it is in the power of her 
kitchen stove to make her if any one should call her a 
heroine. She is quite content to be only Lee's wife. 
" Lee and me " constitute the world in her estimation. 
If by the time you reach the cabin door you have 
become convinced of the folly of being in a " staving 
hurry " about any thing in a part of the country where 
every thing animate and inanimate opposes a superflu- 
ous display of energy, you will wisely accept Lee's 
invitation to '^stop and have a bite," the more readily 
after learning that you have a three-mile walk through 
the forest that crowds close up about the little clearing 
before reaching any other sign of habitation. You 
need not be deterred from accepting this invitation 
through gastronomic qualms. The repast which Lee's 
wife will spread for you on a little table set up against 
the cabin wall under its one window will be the very 
best of its kind, and prepared with a religious regard 
for cleanliness. From the crown of her stiff-starched 
sun-bonnet down to the shuck mat in front of the 
door, upon which Lee performs a formal foot-cleans- 
ing ceremonial before each entrance, she is an apostle 
of tidiness, but as she is opposed to having " men 



1 68 LEE'S WIFE. 

folks loafing 'round " unnecessarily, Lee will invite 
you to a seat on a cypress block under the spreading 
arms of a huge sycamore behind the cabin, where is a 
great litter of cypress splinters and bark, and shingles 
that he makes in primitive fashion with a draw-knife. 
If you have grown philosophically indifferent to the 
engagement wnich it is now utterly impossible for you 
to keep, you will drowsily enjoy sitting there under 
the great sycamore, watching the shining blade of the 
draw-knife in Lee's strong brown hands as it glides 
into the rough-hewn cypress block (behind which he 
sits astride of another block) and slices off shingle 
after shingle of accurately uniform thickness with 
marvelous celerity. There is something soporific in 
the intense quietness of your surroundings; nothing 
more violent than the grunt of content which the pig 
that Lee's wife is fattening for Christmas, in the pen 
under the cabin window, sends up in acknowledgment 
of the potato parings that have fallen like manna at 
his feet; or the meditative sing-song of a hen leisurely 
prospecting the premises for a desirable laying-place; 
or the music of the coffee-mill that Lee's wife is turn- 
ing with brisk regularity, or the distant sound of pad- 
dle-wheels churning the river around the bend just 
below disturbs it. You can see the black column from 
the steamer's smoke-stack rising above the green heads 
of the cotton-woods. It's " the packet," Lee will in- 
form you, and her coming is a semi-weekly event 
which makes the faintest possible ripple in the placid 
current of his life, for it may be that Lee has sent to 
the city for a new saddle for himself, or a pair of 
rocking-chairs for the cabin, or a '* whole " half-barrel 



LEES WIFE. 169 

of sugar, which Lee's wife has pronounced truer 
economy than buying by '* the small " of the local 
tradesman. But whether she is to land or not, the 
draw-knife will come to a stand-still, and Lee's head 
will be turned lazily over his shoulder to watch the 
great white palpitating mass glide swiftly in and out 
of sight, and Lee's wife will come to the door again 
and follow its graceful movements with brightly inter- 
ested eyes, and both of them will feel the faintest pos- 
sible accession of interest in the world to which it 
links them. 

Unless you are exceptionally unapproachable, it is 
not likely Lee will lose the golden opportunity of tell- 
ing the story of his wife's heroism to a new listener. 
He is very proud of her pluck, and as his egotism takes 
the shape of singing her praises, it leans to virtue's 
side and is quite endurable. He will tell it to you plainly 
and slowly, but veraciously, and it will enhance your in- 
terest in the little brown-eyed woman who is singing 
ove rthe biscuit-tray in the cabin yonder. Perhaps, 
that is if you are very susceptible, it will give a different 
flavor to the rather conglomerate noon-day meal of 
fried fish preserves, hot biscuit, coffee, and butter-milk 
to which she will presently summon you with her 
friendly unembarrassed smile. 

This is the story Lee, the ferryman, is so fond of 
telling : 

" It waren't a matter of choice with me that I was 
outer the way at that pertickular junchoor — it never 
is of my own choosin' when I stop away all night from 
the cabin, for it's a lonesome sorter place 'cording to 
some folks' notions, and women-folks are apt to grow 



I70 LEE'S WIFE. 

fanciful when the sun goes clown and the shadows 
crowd black around every corner until the very ley- 
hopper by the chimbley .'ill give 'em a start if they 
happen t' look toward it after dark. Then the owls 
helps along the shivers some. It ain't cheerful music 
they make a hootin' at each other in these old woods 
every night. Blamed if I don't think sometimes that 
Nannie (nodding proudly toward the cabin) has got 
the grit of forty wild-cats to stand it 't all. 

'' I had to go prospecting for timber that day. I'd 
took out a contract to furnish 20,000 boards to cover 
Squire Moore's new gin house with, and I've cut 'way 
mos' of the cypress clost to my field — I've turned off 
a sight of shingles since I settled in this bottom — and 
that day I laid off to find my trees and blaze 'em and 
then get home by lamp-light. Nannie didn't look like 
she relished the prospeck much, but she ain't the 
sorter woman to make you feel like a crimi;/<?/ ever}'' 
time you get out of her sight, so she put me up 
enough col' vittles in a tin bucket to last me a week 
'stead of for one col' snack and walked part of the 
v/ay with me, to the blackberry patch down by the gin 
jlough. Nan's death on blackberry jam. I'll bet you 
four bits she gives you some for dinner. Blackberries 
were uncommon fine and plentiful that year. I 
ushully tuk my gun 'long with me, and I've never 
been able to 'count for my not doing it on that per- 
tickuler occasion. Nothing wouldn't have happened 
as it did if I'd a had my gun with me. But I reckon 
it was just as well as it was, for otherwise Nannie 'd 
never had no chence to show her pluck. Well, sir, it 
ain't often that house of ours has to look out foi 



LEE'S WIFE. 171 

itself mos' half a day, but what with the blackberries 
and Nannie not being overly anxious to get back to 
her lonesomeness, it did that day. 

" There used to live up on Squire Moore's place a 
darky named Tim Walker that 'ud far liever steal a 
thing than have it give him ; and as luck would have 
it, he come down that morning to go crost to Rober- 
son's saw-mill. Seeing nobody about, it waren't a 
very difficult matter for him to h'ist the shutter off its 
hinges (it was hooked inside and the door was locked 
with the key in Nannie's josy pocket), git inside, and 
help himself to my shot-gun that always stands in the 
corner of the room behind the bed. Nannie says 
when she got in sight of home and saw that shutter a 
swinging loose from its hinges she knew Old Nick 
was to pay, and she run every step of the way, straw- 
ing the road with blackberries as she run. The first 
thing she done when she got inside was to spy for my 
gun ; it was 'bout the most valuable piece of furniture 
we owned, and when she saw it was gone she just gave 
one jump out of that door to look for tracks. She 
found 'em too. Lucky for us it had been raining day 
before, and the wet ground showed her mighty plain 
the thief had made tracks for the boat-landing. I 
had two skifts then, the new one — I fetched you over 
in that — and the old one ; that's the skeleton of it 
high and dry ; it answers first-rate to salt the cattle in. 
The new one was gone when Nannie got to the bank, 
and as a thick fog was blanketing the river there 
waren't no means of finding out how much the start of 
her the thief had got with my gun ; but she didn't waste 
no time in calkerlatin' that row er figgers. She run 



172 LEE'S WIFE. 

back to the house to get somethin' to bail the old 
boat out with, and for the extra oars I always keeps 
hung up to the rafters, and out she put across the river 
on the track of that thief. I've heard her tell time 
and again of how awful she felt when she got out 
in that white fog and couldn't see nor hear nor 
feel any thing but fog. Nannie says it was just 
like being in the world before there was any thing at 
all made — just a universal whiteness and stillness and 
lonesomeness, nothing in existence but her alone a 
rowing away so feeble like. And after a little she 
lost her bearings ; she could tell by the current 
whether she was pullin' up stream or down, but 
whether she was pullin' for this shore or the opposite 
one was too much for her to say. But she was cer- 
tain of one thing, and that was that she had to keep a 
rowin', and she did. Nanny says once she heard a 
sound of hammerin', like sledges on hollow iron, and 
then she remembered Squire Moore's boiler was 
being patched, so she must be pullin' straight for 
home (Squire lives just back of us here); so she 
pulled roun' on one oar and struck out, as well as she 
could make it, away from the sound. Nanny says, if 
the fog'd a-raised for a minute, so she could a-seen 
one shore or t'other, she'd a had more heart, but she 
pulled for all there was in them plucky little arms er 
hers, until she heard another noise — this time it was 
sorter blood-curdling ; it was the packet coming down, 
snorting and ripping ; fog makes sounds awful loud ; 
she could hear the big wheels just tearing things wide 
open ; she could hear 'em shoveling coal into the fur- 
nace^ and she made u|) her mind to it that her changes 



LEE'S IVIEE. 173 

of being walked over out there in that white fog was 
the best in the world, for as big and as loud as they 
was to her, she warn't nowheres to them. 

" If the fog would just lift long 'nough for her to 
see which way that boat was a headin'! Nannie says 
she begun to think she'd set a sight more store by 
that gun of mine than it was worth. The fog did 
lift, just the least little blowin' aside of it, like a 
woman's veil in the wind ; just long enough to give 
her one glimpse. Two more strokes of the oars, and 
she would have been smack under her bow. Nannie 
says she didn't make them two more strokes. The 
fog fell again presently, thicker 'n whiter than before, 
but she didn't mind it so much — she knew when the 
swell reached her that the packet was well out of the 
way, and then she began pulling again. Nannie says 
she got a sorter notion after while that there was 
another skift out in the fog, and she- just jumped to 
the conclusion that it might be the man she was after. 
She says she pulled like a house afire after that, regu- 
larly racing with that other pair of oars ; it was a 
queer feeling — following the sound without seeing 
any thing. All of a sudden the fog lifted again, this 
time strong and good. She was near the other bank. 
Roberson's saw-mill was buzzin' away there at a great 
rate. There was a lot of fellers on the bank loading 
a flat with weather boarding, and there was — will you 
believe it, sir ? that darky of Squire Moore's just 
pullin' up 'longside the flat in my new skift, 'crost the 
stern seat of which lay my gun. Nannie says she 
just stood up in the old skift and sent one yell ahead 
of her — 'Arrest that man ' — and they nabbed him. 



174 LEE'S WIFE. 

The rest was easy as fallin' off a log for a mud turtle. 
I jist told you the story to let you see what a game 
wife I've got in yonder. Nannie won't let me tell it 
before her. Come in to dinner." 



CHAPTER XIV. 
'mely jane's wedding. 

^1\ /TELY JANE was about to be married ! The man, 
iVl the day, and the dress were all selected. The 
fact that the wedding-dress was a second-hand silk 
belonging to the Miss Amelia whose Christian name, 
corrupted into " Mely," had been one of the bride- 
elect's earliest second-hand belongings, did not 
detract at all from its splendor in 'Mely Jane's 
estimation, since she had been taking life itself, with 
all its attendant circumstances, at second-hand, so to 
speak, from her earliest infancy. 

It was through the instrumentality of a second- 
hand mother that 'Mely Jane had been transplanted 
from the quarters to the big house at the tender age 
of eight years, with a good deal of her native soil 
clinging to her, it is to be feared. By " second-hand 
mother " is meant the good-natured soul who rescued 
her from the cabin, where, by the death of her own 
mother, she had been relegated to the companionship 
of the cats and dogs that had full possession of the 
premises during her father's work hours. If 'Mely 
Jane had not flourished exactly like a green bay 
tree at the big house, she had at least shown the 
expansive powers of a thriving bronze-colored varnish 
tree. Her official duties and position at the big house 



176 'M ELY JANE'S WEDDING. 

had varied with the years and with the changing 
requirements of its inmates. When first presented as 
a candidate for office by her second-hand mother, it 
was as somebody to amuse little Miss AmeUa, and the 
all-potent Mammy who held sway over the big-house 
nursery was propitiated with a watermelon beforehand. 
Mammy's acknowledgment that " dat chile 'Meelie 
was gettin' too much fur her to foller 'roun' arter, wid 
two odder babies on her hands," had been the means 
of opening the gates of Paradise to 'Mely Jane. 'Mely 
Jane's second-hand mother set forth her eligibility 
for the office of playmate in glowing terms, so glow- 
ing that 'Mely Jane was summoned to the big house 
the next day on probation. Her qualifications, as 
reported to head-quarters, were that " she was rale 
peert, mouty quick on her legs, had never been known 
to steal as much as a lump of white sugar, an' did'n' 
hev' no low-live corn-fiel' nigger ways 'bout her." 

When 'Mely Jane was brought in triumph to the 
house by her second-hand mother, who had starched 
her dress with the most reckless disregard for the 
quivering flesh it imprisoned, and arranged her head 
handkerchief in a manner that gave her three or four 
inches of factitious height, she was informed in the 
most peremptory manner that she was to " keep little 
Miss 'Meelie 'mused." 

Little Miss 'Meelie had eyed her askance through 
the shock of yellow curls that defied Mammy and 
discipline, but gave no intimation whatever of her 
willingness to be amused. It was a trying moment to 
'Mely Jane, but her accredited " peertness " carried 
her triumphantly through it. 



'M ELY JANE'S WEDDINQ. til 

" I'se gwine to play buryin'. I is," she said tentatively, 
lifting her conical head-gear loftily in air. " I see 
two chicken heads a layin' des outside de kitchen 
winder as I come 'long, en' I pick 'm up fo' de dawgs 
git 'm. I'se gwine to hev a buryin', I is. Yhere dey." 
She lifted one corner of her clean blue check apron 
to show her gory prizes, thereby bringing down upon 
her Mammy's first lecture on the subject of bring- 
ing " sech truck " into the nursery. But little Miss 
'Meelie's interest was aroused. It was an inspiration. 
The long hot summer afternoon was delightfully con- 
sumed in preparations for the august ceremonial of 
interment under the crape myrtle tree in the garden, 
and when 'Mely Jane's voice arose solemnly in the 
closing hymn, whose words were a curious blending 
of the pathetic and the comic, little Miss 'Meelie's 
capture was complete and 'Mely Jane's future was 
secure. The quarters knew her no more. And from 
that first night, when she made her pallet of a brand- 
new calico comfort on the floor of the nursery with a 
sense of immense material gain, up to the hour when 
she towered awkwardly above Miss Amelia as she 
arranged the wedding veil on 'Mely Jane's head with 
her own delicate hands, the tie formed at the "buryin' " 
under the myrtle tree had gone on strengthening with 
the years. 

Every "big house " in the South has its "'Mely 
Jane," whose duties might be rather undefined, but 
were, none the less, multifarious. Beginning life as a 
sort of nursery supplement, the position had its pains 
and penalties as well as its pleasures and perquisites. 
It was her province to act as a willing scapegoat for 



lyS ' MEL Y JANE'S WEDDING. 

the shortcomings of the nursery charges, or a smiling 
safety-valve for the surcharge of temper that the head 
of the nursery could not eject in any other direction 
with impunity. As a fetcher and carrier she must 
achieve as near an approximation to ubiquity as is pos- 
sible to flesh-hampered spirit. Perhaps no more oner- 
ous task might come into the day than the buttoning 
of a pair of boots on a restless and impatient little foot, 
or the unraveling of the string mystery attendant upon 
tiny petticoats, with all their perplexities of band and 
strap ; but the 'Mely Janes of the past shared with the 
children of the master the sense of awful subservience 
to the mammies of the past. 

It was when little Miss Amelia was finally emanci- 
pated from the nursery that 'Mely Jane's existence 
took an additional importance and dignity and grew 
sweeter in every respect. It was with a protecting 
sense of physical superiority that she spread her pallet 
for the first time in the up-stairs bedroom which was 
from that time forth to be called '' Miss Amelia's 
room." Nothing could have induced the white child 
to brave the vague terrors of the night after her exile 
from the nursery without the blessed assurance that 
'Mely Jane was curled up on her blankets in front of 
the fire. What if 'Mely Jane did slumber with a sound- 
ness that would have rendered a surgical operation 
necessary to convey an idea into her double-locked 
senses ? What if she was small and black and seem- 
ingly helpless? She made up in valorous protestation 
what she lacked of being truly formidable, and little 
Miss Amelia was not hypercritical. 

Such wonderful and improving conversations as were 



'MELY JANE'S WEDDING. 1 79 

held in that up-stairs bedroom between Httle mistress 
and little maid ! It was there and then that 'Mely 
reaped her best harvest of second-hand possessions. 
All the lessons that the white child absorbed during 
the day, from printed text-book or the cultured lips of 
her imported governess, were impressed at second 
hand orally, and with a greater or less degree of accu- 
racy, upon the virgin soil of 'Mely Jane's brain, as she 
stood behind Miss 'Meelie's chair combing, smoothing, 
and braiding her yellow hair into decorous plaits for 
the night with a lingering touch, or else toyed affec- 
tionately with the little pink and white feet in the foot- 
bath, beside which she squatted in ungraceful aban- 
donment, with an upward gaze of keen interest, if not 
always of ready comprehension, in her round black 
eyes. And the volumes of sage, moral aphorisms that 
were poured in one unceasing stream from the pure 
fountain of the white maiden's heart into the coarser 
receptacle of 'Mely Jane's undisciplined soul ; and the 
torturing requirements in the cause of good-manners, 
which she was pathetically adjured not to forget ! In 
return for all which, the mystic lore of the " Kunger 
woman," whose blood flowed in 'Mely Jane's shud- 
dering veins, was retailed in a cheek-blanching mono- 
tone over the blazing wood fire in the up-stairs bed- 
room, until white maiden and black maid would turn 
their fear-distended eyes over their frightened shoul- 
ders, and start at the grotesque shadows their own 
crouching bodies cast on the fire-lighted walls. And 
'Mely Jane would tell gruesome stories of her mammy, 
who was " daid," but possessed of an unrestful spirit 
that persisted in revisiting the quarters in the body of 



1^0 'MELY JANE'S WEDDING. 

a black cat with one green eye and one gray one ; or 
else the interim between undressing and retiring would 
be more prosaically beguiled by 'Mely Jane in roast- 
ing eggs wrapped up in wet newspapers, for her own 
midnight consumption, while Miss 'Meelie read aloud 
edifying but rather tiresome passages from her little 
Bible, which 'Mely Jane had a very poor opinion of, 
seeing it had no pictures in it. But it was not always 
night, and 'Mely Jane was not always acting as body- 
guard against depredators who never came. Miss 
'Meelie's room was her special charge. The earliest 
flowers that grew in the sweet old tangled flower-gar- 
den, were for the vases on its mantel-piece, and the 
elder busTies and the dogwood yielded up their first 
blossoms to 'Mely Jane's insatiable quest. Her flow- 
ers were all votive offerings laid on the same shrine. 

'Mely Jane's intimate association with *' the quality " 
made her an object of unquenchable envy to the less 
fortunate dwellers in the quarter cabins, and when she 
would appear at meetin', proudly conscious of bearing 
a remote resemblance to Miss 'Meelie in so far as that 
resemblance could be perpetuated in frock, mantle or 
hat, she was the cynosure of all eyes. 'Mely Jane 
was an oracle in the quarters. No one could settle a 
vexed point of etiquette more authoritatively than she. 
Who could dispute a decision backed by the example 
of w'ite folks? When Aunt Milly wanted to know if 
it was "manners for Uncle Jake to come to her house 
of Sunday evenings and set and set till she's 'bleege 
to ax him in to supper, when he knowed she didn' 
hev no mo' vittles than 'nough for her ole man en 
the chilluns," and referred the question to 'Mely Jane, 



'MELY JANE'S WEDDING. i8l 

'Mely Jane could find no big-house precedent for such 
a breach of the laws of hospitality, and sustained 
Aunt Milly in her threat of ejectment " nex' time." 
When Sofy Ann was coyly hesitating as to the most 
elegant formula of acceptance known to polite society, 
'Mely Jane was conjured to describe how Miss 'Meelie 
comported herself when her " beaux popped the ques- 
tion," and, mournful to relate, she was never appealed 
to in vain. When facts failed 'Mely Jane's fancy came 
promptly to the rescue, and Miss Amelia was utilized 
to adorn many a tale and point many a moral she 
knew not of. 

'Mely Jane extracted much second-hand happiness 
out of the period of Miss Amelia's belleship. What 
close propinquity was hers to the fast-beating heart, 
and the softly blushing cheeks and the bright flashing 
eyes that told so much the mute lips denied her faith- 
ful ears ? What need of words to impress 'Mely Jane 
when the acceptable one was ushered into the big cool 
parlor down stairs ? Had they, she and Miss 'Meelie, 
grown up together side by side without learning to 
read each other's hearts as easily as the white maiden 
read the wonderful books which 'Mely Jane must 
always take on hearsay ? Didn't 'Mely Jane know 
exactly who was expected when Miss Amelia sent her 
to the garden to bring the tea-rose buds from the bush 
by the asparagus bed ? Hadn't she learned that that 
especial rose was consecrated to one purpose ? And 
didn't she know just as well that Captain Hal Wilson 
was imminent when Miss Amelia was seized with 
those violent pains in her face that kept her shut up 
in the bedroom up stairs until the danger-signal was 



1 82 'MELY JANE'S WEDDING. 

lowered by 'Mely Jane's own faithful hand, as soon as 
the Captain's bob-tailed bays pranced out of sight ? 
And 'Mely Jane grew subtle too. Where was the use 
of breathing the aristocratic atmosphere of the big 
house unless she could possess herself of some second- 
hand subtleties? 

She did not apply that big word to her own con- 
duct, either consciously or unconsciously, but she 
was of the opinion that " w'ite folks " were never in un- 
genteel haste, about accepting an offer of marriage ; 
it '' war'n't manners "; in consequence of which that 
humble and devoted adorer, Pete, who groomed Miss 
'Meelie's riding horse and courted her maid with 
equal assiduity and .regularity, got the full benefit of 
several well-rounded " Noes," while 'Mely Jane was 
calmly resolved upon an ultimate '' Yes." The aston- 
ishment Peter evinced at the result of his carefully 
prepared proposals was precisely the effect 'Mely 
Jane had aimed at producing, and she reported prog- 
ress placidly to Miss Amelia every night during 
those ministrations which still included the combing 
and brushing and plaiting of the pretty yellow hair, 
that was worn coronet-wise instead of in the breeze- 
blown curls that 'Mely Jane had coped with in the 
first years of her pleasant service. 

'Mely Jane had privately determined on the time 
when she would substitute a final " Yes " for her oft- 
repeated '^ No." It would be when she should know 
positively that Miss Amelia and " Mars Jo's cousin. 
Mister Fred," for whom, only, the tea roses were 
ever culled, had had their last tiff and were finally 
minded to " jine ban's an' lan's," as 'Mely Jane 



'MELY JANE'S WEDDING. 183 

phrased it. Then there wouldn't be any use of her 
holding out any longer. She regarded Miss Amelia's 
prospective husband as an interloper who would come 
between her and the dear form she had hovered over 
protectingly all these years. When Miss 'Meelie got 
married, then Pete might have his way. Not before. 
Nevertheless, there was a 'delicious excitement about 
Miss 'Meelie's " beauin' time " which 'Mely Jane en- 
joyed estatically at second hand. She would recount 
with pride for the benefit of an interested circle of 
quarter listeners how many horses had '' chawed the 
horse-rack " during the past week, while their gallant 
riders paid court in the Holland-shaded parlor or on 
the vine-draped gallery to the prettiest girl in all the 
country side. 'Mely Jane was humbly convinced that 
her own flirtations and romances were but cheap imi- 
tations, scarcely worthy of mention in other tones 
than of ridicule. That was why, on a certain evening, 
when she stood behind Miss Amelia's chair carefully 
disentangling the thorns of the tea roses from their 
resting-place in her mistress's braids, 'Mely Jane 
began her confidence with a little contemptuous snort : 
"Dat nigga Pete ben foolin' 'roun' yhere 'gin, 
Miss 'Meelie." Among her many second-hand 
acquirements 'Mely Jane did not include pure English. 
Her phraseology was as much her own as on the day 
she buried the chicken-heads under the myrtle tree. 
Miss Amelia made no comment on the fact that Peter 
was fooling around again ; she just put up her hand 
for the liberated rose-buds, and inhaled their dying 
fragrance, as she stared abstractedly out of the win- 
dow over the moon-lighted field, and the tangled rose 



1 84 'MELY JANE'S WEDDING. 

garden, and all the other familiar objects she had 
grown up with. 'Mely gave another snort, and 
resumed : 

" En I tol' 'm de fus' thing he know he would n' 
know nothin', pesterin' uv my life out. I say, go 
'way, nigga, you fool 'nough t' think I gwine marry 
any man 'bove groun' en leff Miss 'Meelie sleep her 
lone-seff up styars in dat room ? Miss 'Meelie ain' 
never gwine say 'Mely Jane gone back on her, no 
surr." 

" Pete's a good boy,' Miss 'Meelie said, absently 
tearing the drooping rose-bud to pieces, " and, 'Mely 
Jane, if you want to get married, you can get married 
the night after I do. Papa's certain to have every- 
body on earth here, and there'll be enough left from 
the wedding supper for 3'ou to have a splendid party 
up in the quarters, so you may as well say, ' Yes ' to 
Pete next time. We, tlTat is, papa and mamma and 
Mr. Fred, settled it all to-night." 

And so, after all, 'Mely Jane was to have a second- 
hand wedding. Nothing could have been more sat- 
isfactory for her or for Pete or for the quarter folks. 
Nothing at first-hand could have been half so gor- 
geous. 'Mely Jane's own approaching nuptials occupied 
but a limited portion of her thoughts during the week 
of delicious turmoil attendant upon the wedding at 
the big house. There w^as bedding to be aired, and 
ruffled pillow slips to be put on all the beds in all the 
spare rooms. There were lounges and cots to be cun- 
ningly devised in out-of-the-way nooks and corners of 
the old house. There were whole crates full of old and 
new china to be washed speckless and rubbed '' shiny." 



'M ELY JANE'S WEDDING. 185 

There was no end to the ducks and the turkeys and 
the chickens to be plucked. There were mountains 
of eggs to be beaten and rivers of cream to be whipped. 
There were whole boat-loads of imported delicacies 
from the " city " and " store-made " pyramids of 
nougat and spun-sugar to be handled carefully and 
admired enthusiastically. There was the unpacking 
of Miss 'Meelie's new trousseau from Olympe's, and 
the lavish selection of 'Mely Jane's second-hand wed- 
ding outfit from the full supplies in the wardrobes up- 
stairs. Oh, it was a grand time for every body con- 
cerned, and the encomiums that were lavished, in good 
grammar, on Miss Amelia's new dresses from the city 
were lavished with equal heartiness, in bad grammar, 
on 'Mely Jane's, as they lay spread out for inspection, 
in the bridal chamber in Pete's house, whose furnish- 
ing had been Miss Amelia's own concern. 'Mely Jane 
shone with the reflected luster of the big house, and if 
on the night after the one that had seen all the coun- 
try-side gathered under the big-house roof, the pyra- 
mids and iced cakes and beflowered fruit stands 
seemed a trifle out of place in the great open space 
under the lint-room of the gin, that had been canvased 
in for the occasion, they excited as much admiration 
in their semi-demolished condition as in their pristine 
glory. But 'Mely Jane's wedding feast was furnished 
more substantially, and if the delicate frost-work of 
the city cake found itself in too close proximity to 
the roast pig of Pete's providing, or a pile of hot sweet 
potatoes aspired to overtop the nougat pyramid, or 
the colored wax candles were stuck in flat white 
squashes for candle-sticks, who cared? 'Mely Jane 



1 86 ' MEL Y JANE'S WEDDING. 

had a real *' quality " wedding, and every^body was 
happy except, perhaps, " Brer Ben." 

*' Brer Ben " had soured on the world, so to speak, 
since becoming " Pa'son Ben." He considered a 
cheerful countenance or a hearty laugh as tempta- 
tions of the Evil One, and religiously refrained from 
indulging in either. Nothing could have induced him 
to lend his countenance to the sons and daughters of 
Belial that gathered in the dance-house every Satur- 
day night, and made night hideous with the fiddle and 
the bones and patting. The outward and visible 
signs of Brer Ben's sanctity were many and irrefraga- 
ble, but there were those malignant enough to hint 
that it was just as well to count your chickens after 
he had been seen in the neighborhood of your coop, 
or to lock your sweet potatoes against him. 

Brer Ben was promptly on hand to join 'Mely Jane 
and Pete in the bonds of holy wedlock. He regarded 
the long table, tottering, if not groaning, under its 
weight of wedding cheer, with furtive approval. The 
long table was a narrow plank affair on untrustworthy 
legs, which were nothing more than pointed pickets 
driven hard down into the beaten soil under the gin 
shed. Pete had labored industriously over it all that 
morning. The bolt of new white muslin that 
answered the purpose of table damask hid all defi- 
ciencies, but did not prevent a certain undulatory 
movement in the surface which made Pete quake 
anxiously at every addition to its contents, as he 
expressed a devout hope to his best man that " all the 
vittles would be et up befo' de table colopse." 

'Mely Jane's own appearance extracted an audible 



'M ELY JANE'S WEDDING. 187 

groan of disapprobation from Brer Ben's deep chest. 
She furnished him a text as she stood before him 
in an attitude copied closely from the one Miss 
Amelia had posed in so recently, challenging the 
admiration of the " quality." If 'Mely Jane failed of 
impressing her public, it was not for lack of conscien- 
tious study on her part. The effect was slightly 
marred by Pete himself. 'Mely Jane was of that 
rich off-color known as '' griff," while Pete rivaled the 
ebony writing-desk in the library at the big house 
for color and polish. 'Mely Jane towered above her 
groom with a giraffe-like extension above the shoul- 
ders. Pete, in the long black swallow-tail presented 
by his w'ite folks for the occasion, cowered under her 
protecting wing, as it were ; but it was a very gor- 
geous wing on that occasion, and as Pete lifted his 
eyes reverentially to the wreath of poppies and corn- 
flowers that supplied the place of 'Mely Jane's famil- 
iar bandanna handkerchief, his soul swelled within 
him, and it was without a single mental reservation 
that he swore valorously among other things to " pro- 
tect " his towering bride. 

But so much of this world's pomp and vanity 
was not to be overlooked by Brer Ben. What more 
fitting illustration of the devil's power as a tempter 
was he ever likely to find than was furnished by 'Mely 
Jane in her " changeable " green and gold silk, or in 
the crowning frivolity of those poppies and corn- 
flowers ? Brer Ben summoned the candidates for 
matrimony to take their places before him in his best 
" meetin'-house " voice. It was sonorous and impos- 
ing. 'Mely Jane briskly took the lead, with Pete fol- 



1 88 'MELY JANE'S WEDDING. 

lowing meekly in iier wake. (They have observed 
the same order ever since.) Brer Ben's address, 
delivered prior to the joining of hands, was a happy 
medium between a funeral sermon and a judge's 
charge to the jury in a criminal case. 

" Sistern and breddern, we is meet togedder to jine 
dis man and dis woman in de bonds of holy widlock. 
Leas'ways I is meet to jine 'm' en you is meet prin- 
supply, I tek it, outer a hankerin' arter de flesh pots 
uv Egyp. De flesh pots uv Egyp is ve'y good 
in der way. I ain' got nothin' to say ag'in 'm 'ceptin' 
this, de Bible say man shall not live by bread alone. 
Some folk thinks dat means you's 'bleege to hev turkey 
en' crenberries ev'y day, but I don' fin' no support for 
no sech preposition uv carnalniss widin de leds uv de 
good book. What I does fin' der, sistern and bred- 
dern" (here Brer Ben's eyes traveled slowly from the 
hem of 'Mely Jane's changeable silk to the biggest 
red poppy in her bridal wreath), " is dis, * Vanity of 
vanity, all is vanity, sayith de preacher.' Now, sistern 
and breddern, I is de preacher on dis festif 'casion, 
en w'en I sees a pusson wnd a charge to keep" (eying 
'Mely Jane severely), *' a prancin' 'round wid her head 
high up in de a'r, fur all de worl' lak a unbroke colt 
in a pea fiel', I sez vanity. An' w'en I sees a pusson 
wid a immortal soul t' save en fit it fur de skeeye, a 
cavortin' roun' in de gyarments uv sin en selfishness, I 
sez vanity ! An' w'en I sees de necklisses en' de 
bracelits" (here 'Mely Jane clutched convulsively at 
her lava bracelet), " which is but de soundin' cimblins 
en tinklin' brass uv dis worl', adornin' uv de pusson 
of a young woman, I sez vanity twicet over. Sistern 



'MELY JANE'S WEDDING. 1^9 

en breddern, de Bible sez it is better to be in de 
house of mo'nin den in de house uv rejoicin'. We is 
all meet here t' rej'ice over 'Mely Jane Benson's takin' 
Pete — Pete — whar yo' udder name, nigger ? " (se- 
verely). " Ransom," escaped timidly from Pete's 
tremulous lips, to be repeated sonorously by Brer Ben 
as he resumed : " Ransom, Pete Ransom, t' be her 
lawful en wedded husbin'. I purnounce you man en 
wife — s'loot yo' bride." 

Brer Ben's harangue came to an untimely end. 
Aunt Winny, mistress of the feast, had whispered to 
him that '' the chicken soup was gittin' col'er den a 
iern wedge." Brer Ben liked chicken soup, and he 
did not like iron wedges as an article of diet. He 
had sown enough good seed by the wayside to keep 
'Mely Jane from going to perdition, unless she had 
positively made up her mind that that was the destina- 
tion she preferred. He could have said a great deal 
more, but advice is as good cold as hot, and chicken 
soup is not. Brer Ben's homily was the only first 
hand thing 'Mely Jane ever had bestowed on her. 
Her preference is still for second hand things. She 
waived the ceremony of being saluted by her husband, 
not being able on the spur of the moment to recall 
any " quality" precedent for an osculatory finale to 
the marriage ceremony. Brer Ben turned with alac- 
rity to the flesh pots of Egypt, and, his example prov- 
ing infectious, Pete had the satisfaction he craved of 
seeing all the '' vittles et up, befo' de table colopse." 

The new barn floor resounded to the sound of 
shuffling feet and rattling bones that night far past 
the wee hours, though Brer Ben did not countenance 



19^ 'MELY JANE'S WEDDING, 

that part of the universal levity. It was a gala night 
at the quarters, and the memory of it lived long after 
'Mely Jane's changeable green-and-gold silk was 
" wore to a frazzle," and her bridal wreath of poppies 
and cornflowers had perished as the grass of the field 
perisheth. 



CHAPTER XV. 

CHARLEY knight's STRATEGY. 

Mx\RINERS know of certain small pests called 
" barnacles " that have a number of long curled 
things (in the absence of accurate information as to 
whether they should be called feet or proboscides, 
" things " is considered safest\ which they fasten upon 
and about the wooden hulls of vessels, incrusting them 
to an incredible extent, until there is nothing for it but 
to lay by and make war to the knife upon the small 
but insidious foe. It is said the danger from these 
pests is greatest in sluggish waters. 

Perhaps the time has not yet come for a true esti- 
mate to be placed upon the nature of that species of 
barnacle known as the carpet-bagger, nor upon the 
peril from them that the Ship of State ran in the early 
days of reconstruction. When she was tossing and 
plowing her war-path through stormy and troubled 
seas, the miserable parasites could gain no hold upon 
her stanch hull ; but when she finally lay becalmed 
in the still waters of a hard-won haven of peace, 
they fastened upon her eagerly, greedily and harm- 
fully. 

That this species of barnacle properly belonged to 
the ephemera, is best proven by the frequency with 



192* CHARLIE KNIGHT'S STRATEGY. 

which one already hears the question asked, '' What 
was a carpet-bagger ? " Webster, in his supplement 
(the word finds no place among time-tested defini- 
tions), gives ; " Carpet-bagger : "A term of contempt 
applied to a Northern settler in the southern part of the 
United States, after the close of the civil war, seeking 
only private gain or political advancement," which is 
comprehensive if not accurate, but casts the odium 
of undiscriminating contempt upon the people who 
applied the term to all Northern settlers ; for the men 
who settled South for other objects than " private 
gain or political advancement " must have gone there 
in a purely benevolent missionary spirit, and deserved 
better treatment, even at the hands of sore-hearted 
rebels quivering under recent defeat. 

To drop metaphor, which is in itself fraught with 
serious peril, only those who have had direct personal 
experience of that vicious outcome of the civil war, 
the carpet-bagger, can properly gauge the baleful in- 
fluence he exercised upon the solemn task of recon- 
structing the Union. Every town sufficiently large 
or prosperous to excite cupidity had its one or 
more specimens of the genus, who, settling among 
a people lying panting and exhausted from a fierce 
struggle that left them well-nigh destitute of every 
thing that makes life worth living, proceeded to put on 
the thumbscrews and virtually fulminated the new eth- 
ical code, the greatest good to the smallest number. 
Impotent to get rid of them, their victims showered 
inadequate contempt upon them, which was received 
with stolid outward equanimity, so long as it affected 
neither their private gain nor their political advance- 



CHARLIE KNIGHT'S STRATEGY, 1 93 

ment disastrously, but, rankling inwardly, was doubt- 
less the primal cause of many an act of disorder and 
violence, which has been harshly attributed to the un- 
exercised spirit of rebellion. 

Before the men of Slaterville had had time fairly 
to shake the dust of the battle-field from their worn- 
out shoes, or substitute civilians' clothes for their 
shabby gray uniforms, they were made aware of a 
presence in their midst that boded no good to them. 
A new lawyers' firm was established in town, and on 
its smart new shingle were two names that nobody had 
ever heard before. Men smiled grimly at the idea of 
new lawyers coming to Slaterville, where the old ones 
had found it hard enough to " grabble " a living before 
the war, and, of course, it would be ten times as bad 
now that there was not only nothing left to fight over, 
but no money to pay the lawyers for the fighting. 
Plainly those two young men had made a big mistake, 
and the Slaterville people took a malicious pleasure in 
leaving them to find it out for themselves. As for 
them and their households, there was work a-plenty on 
hand for them, rebuilding and restocking their stores ; 
learning how to deal in new fashion with the freed- 
men (an unfamiliarized element of the new order, 
which they handled awkwardly enough at first, dread- 
ing always to err on the side of concession); communi- 
cating with the commission merchants, upon whom 
they must depend for help before they could turn a 
wheel ; and, most onerous, most strange of all, learn- 
ing how to put their own shoulders to the wheel. 

The conspicuous presence of the new lawyers in the 
little town was a perpetual provocation to recall the 



194 CHAKLIE KNIGHT'S STRATEGY. 

ante-bellum bar of Slaterville. '' Ah, there had been 
men of big brains handUng big interests, in those days, 
and the Court House at Slaterville had echoed to many 
a burst of eloquence that might have fallen from the 
lips of a Webster or a Prentiss and done them no dis- 
credit." Slaterville had been very proud of its bar. 
There had been Peter Anderson, poor fellow ! A 
brighter brain and a bigger heart were never united 
in one personality. He hadn't lived long after putting 
on the gray ; shot through that big heart of his at 
Shiloh. And there were the Poindexter brothers ; 
they made one think of Richard and Saladin contend- 
ing with ponderous battle ax and polished scimitar 
when they were pitted against each other in a case ; 
and then almost in each other's arms as soon as it was 
decided. And Drake and Gibson — " They were 
lightning." There wasn't one of them that couldn't 
crush these new fellows in an argument ; but they were 
all scattered. The Poindexter boys had gone to 
Nicaragua, and Drake and Gibson had declined com- 
ing back to starve ; they had concluded to try their 
luck in St. Louis. What these new men could expect 
to make out of the law tJiere was more than Slaterville 
could divine. But the new men did not seem at all 
perturbed at the prospect. In fact, they looked as if 
they could well afford to wait for a practice to grow. 
They were not unwilling to be friendly and sociable, 
and at first showed a decided disposition to join the 
groups of returned soldiers, whose wounded spirits 
derived a certain amount of balm from telling over the 
stories of their fights and their escapes and their strate- 
gic moves perhaps a trifle vaingloriously, perhaps with 



CHARLIE KNIGHT'S STRATEGY. 1 95 

the modesty of true courage, to the interested listeners 
who had only sniffed the battle from afar. But they 
were not made welcome by soldier or citizen, and soon 
accepted the unspoken fiat of social ostracism, which 
was an error on the part of the Slaterville people. 

" It would be different, you see," said Charley 
Knight, turning his flashing eye (the only one he had 
brought back with him), on the group which had been 
silently observing one of the new men as he left them 
and walked rapidly toward the little cottage, which 
was lodging-house and law-office in one for him and 
his partner, " if those fellows had ever been soldiers 
and had stood their chances of hit or miss with the 
rest of the blue coats, but " (polite literature demands 
a hiatus) " they've never so much as smelled gun- 
powder, and have come down here in the wake of the 
army like a flock of buzzards to pick our bones after 
the flesh's all gone." Which was so true in every 
essential particular that no one dissented from Charley 
Knight's rather hyperbolical way of putting the case. 

The attitude of the white men of the South toward 
the freedman was at first one of confused uncertainty, 
somewhat as if a needy artisan were given a tool the 
nature of which and the manner of using which were 
totally unfamiliar to him, and were told to make his 
livelihood by it. A livelihood must be extracted out 
of the land by the use of these new tools, but they 
were edged tools and must be handled with discretion. 
It is easy enough now to smile at the absurdities of 
then, but it was a '' ticklish experiment," and men 
resumed their industrial occupations in rather a hap- 
hazard fashion. They could not command these new 



196 CHARLIE kNIGHT'S STRATEGY. 

made citizens, and they could not treat with them as 
man to man. Another error on the part of the Slater- 
ville people. Things were all out of kelter. Unsatis- 
factory as laborers, they could not accept these freed 
slaves at all as citizens and voters. That was simply 
a huge joke. Even after, through their own ineligi- 
bility to office by reason of obstinacy in the matter of 
taking the oath, all the local offices had been impar- 
tially distributed between their former teamsters and 
gardeners and hostlers, they could see only the funny 
side of this sudden enfranchisement of the darkey. 
There was no special apprehension concerning it. 
The new officials comported themselves with an absurd 
mixture of deference and crude dignity, and Charley 
Knight was the first man to address his own emanci- 
pated stock-minder as Justice, with a rollicking laugh 
which made the new Justice of the Peace show his 
superb white teeth in an animated responsive grin. It 
was only when it became apparent that the new county 
officials were nothing more than so many supple-jacks, 
manipulated by the new lawyers, that the people of 
Slaterville began to awaken to a sense of their own 
mistaken policy. What other outcome was possible ? 
Ignorant, unlettered, timid, affrighted at the responsi- 
bility thrust upon their feeble hands, they must be 
advised, tutored, led ; and a white man must tutor 
them. The new lawyers did what the old masters would 
better have done. The tutelage was adverse to the 
true interests of the country. They awoke with a start 
when it was too late. Things assumed a serious aspect 
at the time Justice Sam, as Charley Knight and the 
rest of them called him, Mr. Baker, as the new men 



CHARLIE KNIGHT'S STRATEGY. 197 

addressed him, had to sit upon his first case, in which 
the conflicting interests of the white man versus the 
black came up for consideration. Before that case 
came up Justice Sam's administrative abihty had been 
exercised exclusively upon insignificant squabbles 
among his own people, but when it was understood 
that Major Jim Blake had been summoned to appear 
before Sam to answer to the charge of having "willfully 
and with malice aforethought shot at and killed a sow 
belonging to one Benjamin Davis, lessee on said Blake's 
plantation," public indigntion was aflame. 

It was toward dusk of a chill November day that 
Major Blake rode into Slaterville, sitting sternly erect 
on his old war horse, whose visible anatomy had 
gained him the title of Praise-God-Bare-Bones (the 
giver of the name presumably considering the posses- 
sion of any horse in those days occasion for thanks- 
giving). He was in the custody of his own ex-dining- 
room boy and his neighbor Rawlings's ox-driver, 
respectively the sheriff of the county and his deputy. 
He had come to stand his trial for sow slaughter, 
and was conveyed directly to the cottage of the new 
lawyers, where Sam's court of justice was always held. 
The men of Slaterville ground their teeth in impotent 
rage as the majestic old soldier, the battle-scarred hero 
of a dozen engagements rode by their doors between 
his saffron-hued custodians. As for the major him- 
self, it was only by the rigid setting of his square 
under jaw, and a certain pallor about his high cheek 
bones, that he betrayed any sense of the indignity of 
it all. 

The decision of the court that Major Blake be com- 



198 CHARLIE KNIGHT'S STRATEGY. 

pelled to pay costs and twelve dollars to plaintiff, 
despite the proven fact of frequent warnings, did not 
pour oil upon the troubled waters of public sentiment. 
Thereafter the white men of the county rashly conclu- 
ded that their interests as a community were to be 
arrayed against the interests of their old slaves, with 
whom the " shysters " who manipulated them were 
identified. On the other hand, the new men, accept- 
ing scorn and obloquy as their inevitable portion, 
grew more and more bold in reaching out for that 
political preferment which was the true motive of 
their temporary acceptance of the taboo laid upon 
them socially. The whirligig of time would bring in 
their revenge. The petty local offices, with their lean 
pickings, the Nation's wards were welcome to, but the 
larger, fatter, and more dignified positions, that gave 
control of county affairs, they aspired to themselves. 
The price Sam Baker and his confreres were expected 
to pay for their own sudden elevation to the dizzy 
heights of political power and comparative opulence 
was the free-will offering of their newly acquired 
votes. Not that it seemed much of an offering to 
Sam, that mysterious little ballot whose chief excel- 
lence consisted in making him feel more like '' w'ite 
folks," but the new bosses knew, and he was bound by 
every obligation of gratitude, to cleave unto the men 
that had made him a '' jestus " of the peace and called 
him Mr. Baker, and actually invited him to sit down 
in their presence. True, when he accepted this invi- 
tation, Sam simply appropriated the minimum of the 
chair seat, and felt about as uncomfortable as he 
looked, but that did not lessen the honor. Ah, yes. 



CHARLIE KNIGHT'S STRATEGY. 199 

those were dark days — infinitely darker than when, 
amid the smoke of battle, and the shrieking of shell, 
and the whistling of bullets, the men of Slaterville 
had stood face to face with the foes who had come out, 
as they had, to do battle for what they conceived to 
be right, and dared to die for the maintenance of a 
principle. There was a grandeur in that that made it 
easy for them to accord the meed of praise, and per- 
haps, some of these days, it would be possible for 
them to love such enemies. But this was different. 
Here they must consent to match craft with craft, 
meet guile with guile, or submit to being politically 
effaced in their own country. It looked darker than 
ever when the nominations for tax-receiver and district- 
attorney were announced. The two new men were 
the candidates. " It would be a walk-over," the men 
of Slaterville said gloomily, for there wasn't a corpo- 
ral's guard among them who had taken the iron-clad 
oath that would give them equal political rights with 
Sam Baker and the rest of them. A deadly supineness 
came upon them. Things were in too much of a snarl 
for them to grapple with, all exhausted and dispirited 
as they were. The struggle for daily bread was so 
stern and real that, closely as that matter of tax-receiver 
and district-attorney touched them, it was with a dull 
pain they accepted the nominations, and prophesied 
dreary things yet to befall, rather than with that 
sharp, keen resentment that leads to redress. 

It was Charlie Knight who was led to do a thing 
that in his own chafed soul he called a beastly thing 
to do. " Boys," he said, facing abruptly around on a 
group of sober-faced men who had been discussing the 



200 CHARLIE KNIGHT'S STRATEGY. 

political muddle with bitter words and angry ges- 
tures, " I'm going to that mass meeting to-night. It's 
a beastly thing to do, but I begin to suspect we've 
been more nice than wise all along. We've let the 
shysters have it all their own way." 

'^ How are you going to prevent it ? " a mocking 
voice asked. 

*' I don't know," said Charlie. His one eye looked 
perplexedly down on the men who were whittling 
mercilessly on the store gallery benches. *' That's 
what I want to find out ; but we've been foot balls for 
these fellows long enough." 

Three or four voices were raised in protest : 
" You'll be insulted if you go to Barnes's gin to-night. 
Better stay away, Charlie. It's a mass meeting of 
darkies. It's in 'em to do worse than insult you." 
But it was no mere impulse that had stirred Charlie 
to this sudden resolve. The men of Slaterville all 
knew that, once his mind made up, there was no 
power on earth could make him swerve from the line 
of conduct he had adopted. His inaction, like that 
of nearly all the men about him, had been more pre- 
occupation than any thing else. No one volunteered 
to go with him. He was glad of it. He was sure of 
himself, but he could not say as much for any of the 
rest of the fellows. He didn't want any tinder-boxes 
along. His own going was the result of serious re- 
flection. 

Barnes's gin was a huge shingle-roofed affair, with 
an immense earth-floored space beneath it mto which 
the cotton bales were ejected from the press above, 
and where they accumulated to be marked before 



CHARLIE KNIGHT'S STRATEGY. 201 

shipment. There were no cotton bales there then, 
nor had there been for several years now. There 
were little locks of the lint, cobwebbed and dirty, still 
clinging to the rough-hewn joists and rafters, and a 
rude litter of iron ties and cotton-weighers, and dis- 
carded picking baskets filled what space was left by 
the crowd of dark faces that were massed under its 
roof. They made a weird picture to Charlie Knight 
as he quietly joined himself to the crov/d unnoticed. 
The illumination was poor. At the remo<"e end of 
the space, mounted on the tongue of an old ox-cart, 
stood the orator of the occasion. Charlie could see 
by the dim light of the carriage lantern swung over 
his head that it was Uncle Isham, his own gardener. 
" One of the few," he said to himself bitterly, " that 
he had thought true to the backbone." There was 
no other light under the gin-shed and there were no 
seats. They were all standing, stolidly listening, 
neither approving nor dissenting. There was a strong 
infusion of tobacco smoke in the atmosphere, and the 
red glow from a score of short, black pipes punctuated 
the gloom. Uncle Isham was in full tilt when Charlie, 
stopping quietly on the outskirts of the dark mass, 
drew his hat well down over his face and listened. 

" Boys, lis'n t' me. I is ben young en now I is ol' ; 
thar's no use uv denyin' hard fac's. I is ol', en 
gettin' older, en mo' no 'count ev'y day I lives ; but, 
boys, de Bible says, lis'n to de words of destruction 
on 'spise 'em not. You-alls ack lak you was plum 
crazy, boys, you cert'n'y does. I is ben sittin' over 
thar on a bunch uv cotton ties, jes a listenin' to you- 
alls en a tryin' t' fin' out wa't you is drivin' et enny 



202 CHARLIE KNIGHT'S STRATEGY, 

which-a-way. Does you all know yoseff ? Wat 
de w'ite folks ever done t' you-alls ennyhow ? Ain' 
dey done feed you, en clothe you, en look arter you 
w'en you sick, en help you ev'ry time you want help ? 
Tell me dat. En ain't you free now ? Tell me dat. 
Kyarn you pick up en lef one plantashun en go 
to anudder, ef one plantashun don' suit you en t'udder 
one does ? Tell me dat. En kyarn you go to 
meetin' ev'ry Sunday en to pra'r meetin' ev'ry Satur- 
day night ef you feels. like it en nobody t' hinder you ? 
Tell me dat. Wat mo' you-alls want ennyhow ? 
Tell me dat. Boys, I is broke in a heap er colts in 
my life, powerful skittish ones at dat, but I 'clar' fo' 
goodness I never see a unbroke colt go on no wuss 
den some uv you young fellers since you got de bit 
between yo' teef. I didn' get up yhere to do no 
great 'mount uv spee.chifyin'. 'Tain in my line. I 
jes' got up yhere t' say a word or two to yer fer yer 
own good, boys. If you yhere me, I'd rather enny 
day see Mars Charlie Knight, my ol' Miss's boy, 
w'at I ben knowin' ever since he was bawn en ain' 
never kotch in a lie yit, runnin' for office yhere 
'mongst his own folks, den er stranger w'at we got t' 
tek on his own say so ; en, boys — one mo' word, en 
de ol' man's done. He gwine wash he's ban's uv you 
arter to-night. Ontel I gets rich 'nough to buy a 
whole bar'l of po'k en a bar'l of co'n-meal all at oncet, 
I'se gwine to stick t' de man dat carries de smoke- 
house keys. Now I'se done. Dat's my las' v/ord." 

A hat went up on the outskirts of the dense crowd, 
a clear young voice called for three cheers for Uncle 
Isham, and then Charlie Knight, broad shouldered 



CHARLIE KNIGHTS STRATEGY. 203 

and muscular, elbowed his way to the front, and 
springing lightly to the tongue from which Uncle 
Isham had just laboriously descended, asked cheerily: 
'' Boys, may I say a few words to you now ? " They 
were mute from surprise, but as there were no dis- 
sentient voices he plunged into what it had occurred 
to him it would be good for them to hear. 

" Uncle Isham has been giving you some very good 
advice, boys. I am interested in knowing how many 
of you will follow it. He gave me some too. He 
didn't know I was standing there in the dark, listening 
to him. I'm going to follow it. I'm going to run for 
tax-receiver myself. It never occurred to me until 
Uncle Isham suggested it. I'm much obliged to him 
for doing it. And you know, boys, you can vote for 
me or you can vote for the other fellow, just as you 
choose, but I think if I was you I'd follow Uncle 
Isham's advice and stick to the man who carries the 
smoke-house keys yet awhile. Later on, perhaps, you 
will be all carrying smoke-house keys, but not if you 
spend your time loafing around white men who do 
their best to make you hate your old friends. You are 
free now, boys, as free as I am. Whether we ever had 
any right to own you or not it is too late to talk about, 
but there's no good reason why we shouldn't all pull 
together since we're in the same boat, and there's no 
other boat for any of us to get in, and I think Uncle 
Isham would make a tip-top stroke oar for us. I've got 
just this one more word to say, boys. You're better 
off than I am in one respect ; you've got a vote and I 
haven't, but I intend to get even with you on that 
score. I'll take the oath to-morrow, and I'lJ 



204 CHARLIE AWIGHT'S STRATEGY. 

come out as an independent candidate. Perhaps your 
bosses haven't taught you what that is yet. However, 
I didn't come here canvassing, for I didn't know 1 was 
going to nominate myself, but I'd like to shake hands 
with every man here who believes that I am as much 
his friend now as I ever was, and that if — mind you, 
boys, I only say if — any of you should vote for me for 
tax-receiver, it would be because you think I'd make 
an honest one." 

It was an inspiration ! 

" Hurray fur Marse Charlie Knight," Uncle Isham 
shouted in a cracked voice, flourishing his old straw 
hat wildly over his gray wool before flinging it en- 
tirely away in his frenzied eagerness to be the first 
man to shake hands with his candidate. They crowded 
about him laughing, jostling, cheering in childlike, 
mercurial relief at this sudden change from the oppres- 
sive solemnity of Uncle Isham's address, that had 
almost sounded like a prophecy of woe to come, to the 
chatty pleasantry of the young soldier. They had 
been trying to think, and the effort tired them. They 
were not used to thinking for themselves. They were 
used to being bidden and to obeying the direction of 
superior wills. This was the first time one of their 
own " w'ite folks " had condescended to meet them in 
argument. Charlie did not overestimate the force of 
this outburst. He had found them in a subdued frame 
of mind, standing in a darkness not all physical, be- 
wildered, and groping along an untried path. He had 
afforded them relief from a present perplexity. That 
was all. To-morrow the shysters would have their 
Qars again, and, no doubt, would make them thoroughly 



CHARLIE KNIGHT'S STRATEGY. 20^ 

ashamed of this sudden spurt of loyalty to an old 
slave owner. He could only be sure of one thing, and 
that was that he and the other fellows in Slaterville 
had been pursuing a suicidal policy all along, and the 
quicker they changed it the better. 

All the Slaterville men crowded around him the 
next morning to hear his experience of the night 
before. He gave it half-laughingly, enumerating ex- 
aggeratedly the number of unwashed hands that had 
clasped his in enthusiastic indorsement of all he had 
said, then, in more serious vein : " And, boys, I've 
resolved to fight the devil with fire. I'm going to take 
the oath and get back my vote. It's a piece of furni- 
ture I can't afford to dispense with. That done, I'm 
not going to run myself, for those scamps over yonder 
would be too strong for me. I'm going to run Sandy 
for tax-receiver. I've changed my mind on that 
point." 

" Sandy ! Why, he's a blockhead ! " 
" Yes," Charley assented cheerfully. 
" And he don't know B from a bull's foot." 
" Of course not." 
'' How would he get along then ? " 
" He'd have to hire a clerk, and I'm going to apply 
for the situation." 

This was too much for their gravity. The men 'of 
Slaterville laughed more loudly and more unanimously 
than they had laughed since the war. It was so sim- 
ply ridiculous, you know. Charlie Knight, one of the 
most fastidious fellows in the county (a handsome one 
he had been, too, before that bayonet thrust had de- 
prived him of an eye), applying for a position as clerk 



2o6 CHARLIE KNIGHT'S STRATEGY. 

to the negro boy who had brushed his clothes and 
blackened his boots every day of his life until he had 
gone into the army. That would be putting the bot- 
tom rail on top with a vengeance. But it turned out 
to be another one of Charley's inspirations. 

He declined the nomination formally tendered him 
by a small committee headed by Uncle Isham, telling 
them that on second thoughts he felt quite sure that 
he could not carry the election, and therefore proposed 
they should elect one of their own color, who, he was 
'' sure, would administer the duties of his office faith- 
fully and honestly." It was a stroke of genius, and 
one that filled the discomfited carpet-baggers with en- 
vious admiration of his diplomatic powers. Sandy car- 
ried the election by a tremendous majority. What if 
he could neither read the oath of office nor sign his 
own name to a receipt for taxes ? All the more imper- 
ative necessity for his having a clerk, and there was an 
efficient and accommodating one ready to his hand in 
his own " Marse Charlie." Some of the taxpayers who 
were brought into personal contact with the new 
receiver reported that it was " as good as the circus 
to see Charlie Knight performing his duties as clerk 
in the tax-office, with Sandy staring at him like a dead 
.and stuffed monkey." But the business was conducted 
to every body's satisfaction, and Sandy was happy and 
Charley was triumphant ; so where's the odds ? 

But all that happened ever and ever so long ago. 
Slaterville is one of the most flourishing towns in the 
new South now, and Charlie Knight is no longer San- 
dy's clerk. He is Congressman for his district. He 
says he never had any political aspirations before he 



CHARLIE KNIGHT'S STRATEGY. 207 

delivered his maiden speecli from the tongue of an ox- 
cart in Barnes's gin-shed, but that having tasted blood 
he craved more. He is a sort of idol with his Slater- 
ville constituents, who declare that it was Charlie 
Knight who broke the backbone of carpet-bag rule in 
the county, and if it had not been for his activity in 
electing Sandy to be tax-receiver it would have taken 
them all longer than it did to get out of the Slough of 
Despond. 



CHAPTER XVI. 
COLONEL Sutton's governess. 

WHEN one of Colonel Rafe Sutton's girls fell 
from the ladder that had been planted against 
the side of the house, by the whitewasher, and 'broke 
an arm, and the same week one of his boys was fished 
out of the bayou half drowned, in consequence of 
trying to cross it in an old dugout that had been 
stranded ever since the last high water, the people of 
Black's Bayou said " it was high-time Colonel Sutton 
was getting a governess to look after his children." In 
local estimation those Sutton children were "just torn 
down," and cautious mothers congratulated themselves 
on the six miles of rough road that intervened between 
their own superior offspring and such hopeless young 
ne'er-do-wells. 

Colonel Rafe (there were so many Suttons in the 
county that they were most readily distinguished by 
their Christian names) seemed to come to the same 
conclusion about the same time. He and Mrs. Rafe 
discussed the matter with true conjugal prolixity, and 
deciding, perhaps, that one governess would be more 
inexpensive than several possible funerals, proceeded 
forwith to procure and install one. 

Of course, he had always looked forward definitely 



COLONEL SUTTON'S GOVERNESS. 209 

to the time when a strange young woman must be 
received into his house as one of the family, but for 
certain reasons of his own Colonel Rafe had not been 
inclined to precipitate her advent. He had always 
intended giving his children a better chance for school- 
ing than had fallen to his own lot. He hadn't had much 
of a show in his young days. He had only been wait- 
ing for Tillie and little Rafe, the two youngest, to 
come of an age when they too could be ^' put at their 
books," for as the governess would be on a fixed, and 
a big, salary, he was economically minded to give her 
as many pupils as possible. But while he waited for 
Tillie and little Rafe, Nannie, the oldest girl, had been 
efflorescing into a first-class tomboy, and Dave, his 
oldest, son had been recklessly sowing the wind that 
promised a future whirlwind of trouble for every 
body. 

Colonel Rafe was conscious of certain deficiencies 
in himself, and in Mrs. Rafe too, that told against 
them when circumstances threw them into contact with 
what he was pleased to call the " old-timers." He 
was himself, comparatively speaking, a new-timer, 
having been a planter in his own name only for fifteen 
years. He intended his young ones to enter into 
enjoyment of the money he was piling up for them 
less heavily handicapped than he had been. There 
" shouldn't none of his boys ever oversee for any 
man living." He meant Dave should '' law it " for 
a living, and little Rafe should be a parson or a doctor, 
whichever one he *' took to readiest " after getting 
through with his books. As for the girls— ah ! well, 
he'd see to it that they should have money enough to 



2IO COLONEL SUTTON'S GOVERNESS. 

make every body forget that their father had got his 
start in life as an overseer, whose unpaid salary had 
been canceled by his employer's turning over to him 
the small hill place back of Black's Bayou known as 
the Hardtimes place. 

The Sutton escutcheon did not shine with effulgent 
radiance in the county where they rallied in such 
force on election day. Of course they were received 
in public (that is, the men were) on a footing of out- 
ward equality, but, nevertheless, there was a line of 
demarkation sharply drawn between the studied polite- 
ness extended to them on all occasions and the jovial 
freedom with which the old-timers and the descendants 
of the old-timers treated each other. No one ever 
joked with a Sutton. Couldn't, you know ; there were 
too many unsubstantiated, or, rather, undenied whispers 
afloat concerning them. Rafe Sutton ** worked his 
hands on Sunday, whenever he got in the grass." 
Dick Sutton '' had been caught cheating at poker the 
last time the fellows let him into a game in Daven- 
port's back room." Another one of them had made a 
dishonest horse-trade, and still another, it was darkly 
hinted, received toll for grinding his nearest neighbor's 
corn in his grist-mill. They were not Sabbatarians 
nor strict constructionists of any sort, those old-timers, 
but a meanness of any description was an unpardon- 
able sin, and if not punishable by the written laws of 
the State, might and must be reached through the 
unwritten law of local censure. Picayunishness was 
the indictment brought against the Suttons ; ostracism 
their sentence. None of the name smarted under this 
existing state of affairs more sorely than Colonel Rafe, 



COLONEL SUTTON'S GOVERNESS. 21 1 

and that was the reason why he was so savagely 
resolved that Nannie, and Dave, and Tillie, and little 
Rafe should be equipped to hold their own proudly in 
the days that were to come. 

Colonel Rafe never did things by halves. Now that 
the time had come when the presence of a governess 
was inevitable he was resolved to import the very best 
that money could procure. He advertised in the New 
York and Boston papers, and soon found himself 
involved in a correspondence that taxed his epistolary 
capacity to its utmost, and resulted in an engagement 
for a year with an unknown young woman of Boston^ 
who expressed herself very choicely and very fluently, 
and signed her name with a flourish that made Colonel 
Rafe blush with confusion over the sharp contrast his 
own clumsy signature presented to it. " I guess she'll 
set us down for Yahoos, ma," he said, sighing resign- 
edly, as he restored to its envelope the governess's 
final missive (in which she told him just when he 
might expect her), '' but if she does the right thing by 
the chicks, we won't mind that ; " and Mrs. Rafe 
agreed that they wouldn't in the least mind that. Both 
of them, in fact, were quite ready to efface themselves 
utterly for the benefit of their offspring, but neither 
was willing to put into words the various disturbing 
reflections connected with the coming of this stranger. 
Mrs. Rafe loved her ease — she was portly and she was 
not symmetrical — she groaned inwardly at the reflec- 
tion that after the arrival of this Boston importation 
she should have to endure the martyrdom of corsets 
and linen collars at every meal. She hoped this young 
woman could eat like other people. She had a vague 



2t2 COLONEL SUTTON'S GOVERNESS. 

idea, couldn't have told you for the world how she 
got it, that Boston intellectuality was exclusively the 
outcome of Boston baked beans and Boston brown 
bread. She consulted every cookery-book she could 
buy or borrow, with a view to preparing those deli- 
cacies in home-like style for the young exile, and the 
quantity of cow-peas and sugar-house molasses she 
consumed in her abortive attempts was beyond com- 
putation. 

Colonel Rafe suffered under the apprehension that 
it would no longer be optional whether he wore his 
jeans coat to the dinner table or left it hanging on 
the hat-rack in the hall. It was almost a foregone 
conclusion that he would never dare to smoke his pipe 
again any nearer than the corn- crib or the cotton-gin.' 
" Those Yankee women had very strict notions, 
especially about the management of the male sex." 
But it would be all right so the young ones got the 
benefit of her rigidity. The young ones looked for- 
ward uneasily to the beginning of a general reign of 
terror, notwithstanding which there was no stint of 
anxiety to make the bedroom upstairs that was to be 
hers look as cheerful and homelike as possible. On 
the mantel-piece, at both ends of it, were big blue 
jars stuck full of red berries and mistletoe. It was 
not Christmas time, but the mistletoe was thick on 
the oaks in the big front yard, and its waxen white 
berries contrasted prettily with the stiff branches of 
wild privet that Dave himself went for to the woods. 
A flat glass dish — Mrs. Rafe'sbest preserve dish indeed 
— full of zinnias and yellow chrysanthemums, occupied 
the center of the table that stood between the two 



COLONEL SUTTON'S GOVERNESS. 213 

windows of the room. The Colonel and Mrs. Rafe 
consulted together over the books that should flank 
the preserve-dish ; as she was from Boston of course 
she was very profound. Personally they had very 
little preference in the matter of selection. There 
were quite a lot of books in the glass book-case in the 
dining-room. The former owner, Colonel Rafe's 
employer, had brought them there from time to time 
when sojourning at Hardtimes. Burton's " Anatomy " 
and *' Butler's Analogy " had a certain alliterative 
sonorous sound about them that secured their selec- 
tion as pieces de resistance. A classical dictionary, a 
book of familiar poetical quotations, with Ouida and 
Rhoda Broughton thrown in for iagniappe, satisfied 
them on the score of mental refreshment for the 
stranger. All that was done on the day before she 
was expected to arrive. Colonel Rafe was to go into 
town for her to-morrow in the buggy. In the mean- 
time there seemed to be a tacit understanding that 
this last day of domestic privacy should be enjoyed 
without restriction. The pains and penalties of un- 
yielding corsets and rigid linen collars were things of 
to-morrow, which must take care of themselves with- 
out any assistance from Mrs. Rafe, who devoted the 
piece of the afternoon that was left, after giving a few 
supplementary touches to the stranger's room, to 
" sorting " her bewildering looking work-basket, big 
as a bushel measure, toppling high with the accumula- 
tion of weeks. Colonel Rafe, guiltless of cravat or 
coat, was engaged in his favorite indoor occupation — 
rubbing up his Winchester rifle and shot-gun, whose 
dismembered parts occupied the whole of one side of 



2 14 COLONEL SUTTON'S GOVERNESS. 

Mrs. Rafe's bedroom (which was the family sitting- 
room. The children, mindful of their coming bondage, 
were holding a farewell banquet to freedom in another 
corner of the room ; a long-handled corn-popper, 
whose contents had contributed materially to the feast 
which was spread on two chairs, reclined against one 
of the brass andirons that supported the blazing logs 
of wood. 

Into this scene of unalloyed domestic felicity, with- 
out a moment's warning, the Boston governess was 
ushered by Uncle Ottaway with a few explanatory re- 
marks ; 

" Yhere's little miss. Mars Rafe. She took a up- 
country boat stidder de packet, an hit Ian' her up to 
ol' Miss Murray's. She forwarded her in de buggy, 
en I foun' her at de fron' gate. I tol' her dere warn' 
no front do' bells nor sich like in dis part er de coun- 
try, so es she jes' wouldn' walk in widout knockin', I 
'lowed I hafter fotch her." 

Self-possessed, with her keen vision taking in every 
phase of this novel home scene, the Boston girl made 
her position clearer still and was made awkwardly but 
kindly welcome by her employers. If she was a nov- 
elty to them — what were they to her? 

That night (she was mercilessly methodical) she 
made her first entry in her new diary. She was re- 
solved to note down the impressions made on her cul- 
tured mind by the every-day events of her new life. 
This was the entry (it serves to illustrate how general 
truths are propagated) : '' Southern people are queer, 
but kind-hearted. The men wear no cravats or coats, 
and make arsenals of their wives' bedrooms ! The 



COLONEL SUTTON'S GOVERNESS. 215 

women are indolent in the extreme, and totally re- 
gardless of those niceties of the toilet that indicate a 
refined nature. The children of both sexes satisfy the 
cravings of nature at the most inopportune times and 
places." (Had she not seen these things with her 
own eyes, and was she not warranted, therefore, in 
placing her impressions on record ? Was not that the 
true way to enlighten the world concerning this pecu- 
liar people ?) She was writing on the table where the 
offering of yellow .chrysanthemums and brilliant zinnias 
made a bright spot of color in her new room. It was 
a large room. She had never slept in such a very big 
room all by herself, and just outside of it was a big 
hall, with all sorts of boxes and chests that burglars 
might secrete themselves behind. And these strange 
people never turned the keys in their front or back 
doors. Life could hardly be safe in such a disorgan- 
ized, or rather unorganized, state of society. At 
least, she could turn the key in her own door if they 
did tell her down stairs not to lock it, because her fire 
would be made very early in the morning. She would 
go without a fire forever before she would risk her 
life so recklessly. The door that opened into the big 
hall opened just at this juncture, and a small figure 
stood irresolutely in the doorway for a second, look- 
ing at the governess with admiring awe. Then it 
came forward until it reached the hearth-rug, and 
stopped again to say timidly and deprecatingly : 

'' I'se 'Mandy. Miss says I'se gwine to be yo' nig- 
ger." Having thus defined her own social status, 
'Mandy loosed her clutch on the corner of a dingy 
calico " comfort " she had dragged in by the ears, as 



2i6 COLONEL SUTTON'S GOVERNESS. 

it were, and seemed to wait, for some response from 
the stranger. But none came immediately. 

The governess's heart at that moment was the seat 
of many commingled emotions. One of the prime 
reasons for her answering this far-away call to Black's 
Bayou was the golden opportunity it would afford for 
her to sow some good seed in the rocky soil of slave- 
owners' hearts, and to inform herself correctly as to 
the status of these down-trodden sisters and brothers 
about whom the whole country was then growing 
violently agitated. For the first time in her life she 
found herself alone in a room with one of these down- 
trodden sisters, and she was shocked at the character 
of her own emotions. Such a little harmless-looking 
sister as it was, too ! with small, bare, ashy-looking 
ankles coming out of a pair of immense red brogans, 
only to lose themselves again under the clumsy hem 
of a red and black plaid linsey skirt, with a thin little 
neck, tied about with a bright bandanna handkerchief, 
surmounted by a round good-natured face, in which 
two black bead-like eyes were stuck, like plums in a 
batter pudding. Such an innocent little face as 
'Mandy's was ! She was accustomed not to be dealt 
with ceremoniously by " w'ite folks," so finding the 
young lady somewhat unresponsive, she proceeded to 
spread her comforter in form of a pallet on one side 
of the fireplace, and dropping upon it in a sitting post- 
ure, said affably : 

" Miss Maggy says I'se to wait on you. I'se to be 
yo' nigger, en' nobody elstis." 

"Who is Miss Maggy ? " the governess asked, lay- 
ing down her pen and coming over to the hearth-rug, 



COLONEL SUTTON'S GOVERNESS, 217 

where she stood looking down on 'Mandy, who was 
placidly loosening the stiff leathern strings to her new 
brogans, preparatory to releasing her feet from dur- 
ance vile. 

" Miss Maggy 's Miss Suttin, Mars Rafe's wife, 
Mistess." 'Mandy gave this unpunctuated explana- 
tion with wonderful rapidity ; '' she say I gwine to be 
yo' nigger now. I gwine to wait on you." 

" But I don't need any waiting on ; I can wait on 
myself." 

'Mandy looked up at her in dumb surprise. This 
was a contingency she was totally unprepared for. It 
involved perhaps a tremendous disappointment for 
her. The governess was a new species of white folks. 
*' You gwine send me back to the quarters ? " she 
asked, fastening her black beads of eyes on the gov- 
erness's face. " I'd ruther stay here. I kin comb yo' 
hyar, ef you'll let me stay here." She sprang up with 
alacrity and placed a chair so immediately under the 
governess that sitting down in it was rendered somewhat 
compulsory. Then she dropped down on the com- 
fort, and taking off the unyielding brogans, she stood 
them rigidly side by side against the chimney jamb, 
eying them with an expression of personal animosity, 
as she addressed them threateningly : " You des 
hoi' on. I gwine to grease yo' t'morrer wid a piece 
er bac'n rine, I is." 

Plainly 'Mandy regarded herself as mistress of the 
situation, for, once relieved of the torture of her 
leathery imprisonment, she sprang nimbly to her feet 
and inaugurated her willing service by turning down 
the bed-clothes, awkwardly and unsymmetrically, it is 



2l8 COLONEL SUTTON'S GOVERNESS. 

true, for she had just that day been imported from the 
quarters for this special role. With a great slop and 
splash she poured the water in the foot-bath, then 
looked about zealously for some other service to ren- 
der. She was in the habit of hearing w'ite folks tell 
black folks what to do, but this was the " cu'ousist 
w'ite folks ever she see." She came back to the fire- 
place again and dropped despairingly on the comfort. 
It never once occurred to her that she was the meager 
embodiment of an awe-inspiring idea in the governess's 
mind. She proceeded slowly and absently with her 
own preparations for retiring. Taking the bandanna 
from about her neck, she brought into view a bar- 
baric display of glass beads of many sizes and every 
color. She glanced up to see if such a flash of 
splendor had not aroused that " cu'ous w'ite 'ooman " 
to some interest in her personality. Evidently it had 
not. She yawned cavernously and explained hon- 
estly : 

" I'se sleepy, I is. Gr'mammy hed me up las' 
night skeerin' de pigs fum under de house mos' all 
night." 

" Where is your mother, Amanda ? " the governess 
asked with irreproachable precision of diction. 

'' My mammy ? " 'Mandy asked, with a puzzled 
upward glance. 

" Yes." 

*' She's daid. My mammy's daid, she is ; dey's 
gwine t' preach her fun'ul naix Sund'y. My mammy's 
been daid gwine on fo' years." 'Mandy imparted this 
bit of family history cheerfully, as she punched the 
glowing wood fire to see the sparks fly upward, 



COLONEL SUTTON'S GOVERNESS. 219 

adding reflectively : " I wonder whar my mammy 
nowT Plainly here was a benighted soul, and a golden 
opportunity ! It was worth coming so far outside the 
pale of civilization to procure such virgin soil for the 
sowing of her good seed. 'Mandy dropped the tongs 
with which she had been improvising pyrotechnics as 
a solemn question fell on her startled ears : 

" Amanda, do you know who made you ? " 

'Manda regarded reflectively the glowing logs 
before which she was sitting tailor-fashion for a long 
second before giving her final decision in a tone of 
absolute conviction : " Nobody didn't mek me, less'n 
'twere Mammy, en she mus' 'a jes' started me, 'cause 
I war'n but jes' half made w'en she die. I'se twicet 
es big es I wuz w'en Mammy die." 

The opportunity was not to be lost : " Did you never 
hear of God ? Of the God who made you and gave 
you all that you have ? " 

" Yessum," she assented briskly, *' en I'se heerd of 
de debbil too. I hear Unk Ishum tell Gr'mammy dat 
de debbil wuz in ' hill Sam's ' fiddle, en he git inter de 
folks' heels eva Saterday night. Dat w'at I hyere Unk 
Ishum say to Gr'mammy." 

'Mandy's benighted condition was beyond question. 
The marvel was that such profound spiritual ignor- 
ance could exist alongside of such happy indifference 
as to her soul's welfare. 'Mandy rose from the position 
of an humble and willing servitor that night, uncon- 
sciously, it is true, to that of an interesting subject for 
a great moral experiment. This young woman, whose 
own youth had been spent in such a rarified mental 
atmosphere, would find out for herself if 'Mandy was 



2 20 COLONEL SUTTON'S GOVERNESS. 

possessed of the capacity to receive great moral and 
intellectual truths ; she would read her accustomed 
portion of Scripture aloud, and she would select such 
portions as must probe the benighted soul in that 
small, dark body, if one really abode there. 

As her gentle, cultivated voice rose on the quiet air 
of the room, 'Mandy clasped her hands reverently and 
bent her shining black eyes on the flames that were 
dancing far up the chimney. It always filled her with 
awe to hear white folks read " out loud." It didn't in 
the least matter what the words were, much less the 
sense of them. There was a certain rhythm in it that 
pleased 'Mandy's musical sensibilities. As the reading 
progressed her gaze became more intense. The light 
of a fixed purpose came into her shining eyes. Lean- 
ing forward, very softly, so as not to disturb the reader, 
she possessed herself of the shovel and softly raked a 
clean place among the glowing coals. Then diving 
suddenly under the comfort, she brought forth two 
long red sweet potatoes, which she laid noiselessly in 
the clean place and covered them quickly over with 
hot ashes, patting the mounds softly and compactly 
into the semblance of two miniature graves. Then she 
resumed an upright posture once more and gave her 
undivided attention to the reading. 

'' Amanda," said her new friend, closing the book at 
the end of the chapter, " did you hear what I read ? " 

'' Yessum ; kose I hyur yo'," Mandy answered 
reproachfully. 

'^What did I read?" 

Mandy inserted one ashy hand under her head- 
handkerchief to scratch her head reflectively : '' You 



COLONEL SUTTON'S GOVERNESS. 22 1 

say, fiff 'ronomy, sixteen verse — en de Lawd he driv 
Adam en Eve outen de gyardin, he did, leastways 
Unk Ishum tol' de folks dat las' Sund'y." Then with 
sudden access of interest : " Missy, ef you gits hongry 
in de middle uv de night, you jes 'call 'Mandy, en 
she'll give you de hottes' sweet 'tater ever you git in 
your life." And 'Mandy patted the ashen graves in 
the fireplace affectionately with the back of the 
shovel. . , . 

It seemed to the stranger the dead of night when, 
aroused by what she knew not, sitting bolt upright in 
the unfamiliar bed, she saw a grotesque sight and 
heard a plaintive sound. It was 'Mandy, sitting on 
the floor in front of the fire, whose logs, now reduced 
to "chunks," she had carefully placed close together 
and blown into a blaze with her own vigorous lungs. 
Her head-handkerchief had fallen off, revealing a sort 
of Medusa-like coiffure of innumerable snake-like 
plaits wrapped tightly about with twine. The ashen 
graves had given up their dead. One charred sweet 
potato lay upon the hearth, the other one was clasped 
in 'Mandy's left hand, while with the right she cour- 
ageously attacked its hot cuticle. Rocking, biting, 
and bemoaning her own wickedness in alternate 
breaths, she cast quaint shadows on the ceiling of the 
room as she swayed her small body dolorously to and 
fro. Now she promised faithful amendment in all her 
wicked ways, even to the giving up of the cherished 
glass beads that begemmed her neck ; now she pro- 
tested against the cu'ous wite 'ooman that had entered 
so promptly upon the work of proselyting ; now she 
took a comforting bite of hot sweet potato ; now she 



^22 COLO MEL SUTTON'S GOVERNESS 

called on the spirit of the mammy who had been 
" daid " nearly four years to bear witness to the gen- 
uineness of her conversion ; finally, openly and con- 
tritely relinquishing a preconceived plan to steal some 
of white folks' sugar for Gr'mammy the next day, she 
heaved one deep-drawn sigh from her unburdened 
conscience, and rolled suddenly over on the pallet, a 
peacefully snoring convert. 

And the Boston girl composed herself among her 
pillows satisfied that she had found good soil in which 
to sow some of the seed she had imported with her. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

CAP Sutton's chance. 

THE exigencies of plantation life, where the slaves 
outnumbered the slave-holding population as 
enormously as it did in the " cotton-belt," necessitated 
the existence of a class of white men in the South 
before the war whose social position, being altogether 
anomalous, its responsibilities and duties were rarely 
ever assumed by men of other than a coarse moral and 
mental fiber. 

Let him be possessed of all the granite virtues which, 
indeed, were essential to his success in his chosen 
sphere of usefulness, let him be never so honest, cour- 
ageous, fair-minded, and humane, the overseer might 
never hope to mingle with the planters or their families 
on terms of social equality. He was a necessary and 
useful middle-man between the ease-loving planter and 
his slaves. His qualifications were purchasable, and 
his virtues had their stipulated price. That many an 
unrecorded heart-pang, many a stifled ambition, count- 
less strangled desires, followed naturally in the wake 
of such a state of affairs, who can doubt ? 

Understanding the practical workings of the machine 
oftentimes better than the master himself, the overseer 
was placed at the head of affairs with an unreserved con- 



2 24 CAP SUTTON'S CHANCE, 

fidence calculated to test the honesty of a bank presi- 
dent. Installed as the virtual master of many helpless 
creatures, and, for the time being autocratic in his con- 
trol of their destinies, his position fostered a spirit of 
pride and tyranny wherever their germs naturally 
existed, and was such as to discourage those milder 
forms of administration which arise from a sense of 
accountability to a higher questioning authority. 
That higher questioning authority undoubtedly existed, 
and in a large majority of cases was exercised, but 
rarely with an openness that might weaken the author- 
ity of the middle-man. The planter who could afford 
his thousand or twelve-hundred-dollars-a-year over- 
seer could afford to discharge from his own mind all 
those sordid details of plantation affairs that detracted 
so largely from its rural delights, and having domiciled 
his middle-man in a commodious house (architecturally 
an exact medium between the big house and the quar- 
ter cabins), located in as central a position as possible 
in the quarter lot, he had a right to look for a quid pro 
quo for his annual checks, in honesty, activity, and that 
sleepless vigilance which the exigencies of the case 
demanded. 

It is easy to see why, things being thus, matrimony 
was hedged about with more than the usual obstacles 
which beset the unmoneyed wooer in every clime and 
every age. Few women courted the pains and penal- 
ties of such a position. The overseer himself might 
mingle with the planters on the store galleries, or at 
the wharf -boat, or wherever else a community of busi- 
ness interest might lead ; might, indeed, if he were 
exceptionally presentable, be accorded the occasional 



CAP SUTTON'S CHANCE. 22$ 

privilege of eating his Sunday's dinner at tiie big house, 
but while, individually, he might gain consideration on 
the score of being a social necessity, an overseer's 
wife had absolutely no raison d'etre. She had better 
not exist at all. 

Society in those conservative days viewed innovation 
with distrust. Any change presupposed a flaw in previ- 
ous conditions. Such a supposition was rank heresy. 
Men might cease to oversee by dint of frugality and 
big salaries ; might, indeed, turn themselves into plant- 
ers by some such occult process as tadpoles mys- 
teriously go through in order to become frogs ; but the 
original tadpolish characteristics must always intrude 
themselves for observation, so that, socially speaking, 
the latter end of that man was scarcely better than the 
first. His children's children might hope to be recog- 
nized as bona-fide ladies and gentlemen, but not 
himself. 

It was this existing state of affairs, wordlessly 
pressed in upon the inner consciousness of Colonel 
Rafe Sutton and his wife, that made them so bent 
upon giving their offspring a " number one chance." 
Colonel Rafe plumed himself upon having wooed and 
won his wife after he had moved out of the quarter 
lot and into his own house as actual possessor of 
Hardtimes, and he considered it lucky that old Dr. 
Robinson's Indiana cousin had come into the neigh- 
borhood on a visit just about that time. She was 
poor and had no prejudices, which latter qualification, 
always a good thing in woman, be she wife or maid, 
proved especially so in his case. Colonel Rafe often 
wished that " Cap," his oldest brother's son, might do 



2 26 CAP SUTTON'S CHANCE. 

as well as he had done in the matrimonial line. But 
Cap was such a *' queer fellow." Yes, every body in 
the neighborhood agreed in calling " Cap " Sutton a 
queer fellow. His queerness was emphasized va- 
riously : "A handsome fellow, but dumb as an oyster 
when the notion takes him." ''As plucky as Julius 
Caesar, but as stubborn as a mule." There was 
always a " but" where Cap Sutton was concerned. In 
his own morbid estimation the disjunctive conjunction 
had first come into play at his birth. He was born, 
but it would have been much better for him if he 
never had been. Family tradition informed him that 
his father had found a wife on board a trading boat 
that had lain tied to a stake in front of the Colonel's 
plantation for weeks, indeed, until its entire stock of 
** up-country " produce had found its way into the 
store-rooms of the various plantations around. The 
owner of the trading boat had a wife and a sister-in- 
law aboard. When he went away, he left the sister- 
in-law behind. Cap Sutton in later years was given 
to vain and idle speculations as to the possible influ- 
ence upon his own destinies of that trading boat's 
never having tied up at the Colonel's landing, or of 
its owner never having had a sister-in-law. He had 
acquired a metaphysical turn by going to school with 
Al and Fred, the Colonel's sons, when they had the 
theological student there for a little while cramming 
them for college. It had been quite an accidental 
thing, his going to school with the boys at the big 
house. As a man he was given to wondering if it 
hadn't been one of his father's big mistakes letting 
him do it at all. 



CAP SUTIVN'S CHANCE. 227 

- As he recalled things, he had been a more cheerful 
and happier boy before that mere sip at the Pierian 
spring. Then there had been no thought of degrada- 
tion connected with the whitewashed frame house 
that stood in the center of the quarter lot, with its 
broad, open doorless hall cutting it in twain. There 
had been no suggestion of servitude in the ringing of 
the bell, as big as a church-bell, mounted on a stout 
post so close to the front gallery of his father's house 
that by reaching over he could seize the long rope 
tied to its clapper. It had been one of his childish 
joys to ring the big bell at twelve o'clock for the 
hands to " knock off " for their nooning, and again at 
one for them to go back to the fields. He had even 
enjoyed the excitement, in those plebeian days, of 
mounting the dusty slouching mules as they shuffled 
into the mule lot with their loosened plow gear 
jingling noisily about their heels, and riding them off 
to water. In that unambitious period^of his existence 
he had held Falstaffian sway over a motley gathering 
of little darkies, whose departure from the period of 
their evolution from apes was but slightly marked in 
the matter of toilet. They were his to command in 
season and out of season, and, although conscious 
that loyalty was only to be secured by a liberal and 
continuous supply of hot biscuits surreptitiously se- 
cured, white taws, or china alleys, he enjoyed his 
brief authority without alloy and led his sable forces 
into deadly conflict with the Jamestown weeds or 
cockle-burrs that infested the quarter lot, with the 
proud consciousness that the boys at the big house, 
gazing enviously at him from the dormer window of 



2 28 CAP SUTTON'S CHANCB. 

the up-stairs school-room, or through the garden 
palings, would gladly exchange their grand exclusive- 
ness for his bare-footed and glorious liberty. 

But all that had been before the Colonel, in a burst 
of indiscreet admiration for what he had been pleased 
to call " Cap's heroism," had insisted upon having 
him up to the big house to give him a chance. It was 
impossible ever to forget the day when he went to 
meet his chance. It all came back to him vividly 
whenever he fell into one of those somber-hued reveries 
that consumed so many precious moments of his young 
manhood. He remembered how vigorously his agi- 
tated mother had " scrubbed " (that was the only word 
that would befittingly describe those ablutions) his 
round freckled face, making sudden and fierce inroads 
into his ears and the corners of his blinking eyes, as 
if she would purge him from every defiling stain before 
sending him forth to be measured by the higher social 
standard of the big house. And how mercilessly she 
had tugged at the refractory masses of his brown hair 
that waved tightly up to its very roots. He could 
remember experiencing a species of shame for the 
waviness of his hair, as contrasted with the decorous 
smoothness of the other boys', and wondering if his 
obnoxious curls were a sort of mild form of " kink," 
caught by infection from his close proximity to the 
quarters. The imprisonment of his feet in the new 
shoes, for whose coming his advent in the school-room 
had been deferred several days, was not the least part 
of the torture of that first day at the big house. His 
shoes creaked, and the other boys' shoes didn't. It 
impressed him with a sense of general inferiority that 



CAP SUT7'0N'S CHANCE. 229 

was as novel as it was uncomfortable. Up there, in 
the quarters, he had been an absolute autocrat in his 
way. In the school-room, with the Colonel's boys 
regarding him with that undisguised curiosity that the 
universal boy bestows unblinkingly upon the universal 
stranger, and with the Colonel's daughter, " little Miss 
Nellie " (whom he had heretofore looked at admiringly 
from a distance, as he might have looked at one of 
the fixed stars) regarding him shyly over the top of 
McGuffey's Second Reader, he felt inexpressibly far 
from home. He remembered, in these latter days, all 
the good advice and maternal admonition with which 
his mother had loaded him up that morning, as if he 
were a sort of big gun that might be expected to dis- 
charge itself effectively at the first pull on the lanyard. 
But he had no recollection of going off at all effeT:t- 
ively on that occasion ; he had been too bitterly con- 
scious of his starchy collar and new shoes and the 
fresh pocket-handkerchief his mother had stuck, with 
such a fatal attempt at elegance, conspicuously in his 
jacket pocket. It had proven nothing but a snare for 
his further confusion, eluding his grasp whenever it 
was needed, and finally taking sanctuary immediately 
under Miss Nellie's chair. He would have died before 
attempting to recapture it from that sacred spot and 
yet had to undergo the fierce agony of having it 
returned to him by her own dainty hand. 

There was no incident of that first day of schooling 
at the big house that was too trivial for memory to 
hold in a firm but painful grasp. But had it not been 
a mistake ; a mistake on the Colonel's part in offering 
him a chance and on his father's part in accepting it 



230 CAP SUTTON'S CHANCE. 

for him ? Before that there had been no basis for the 
sharp and cruel contrasts he had been drawing ever 
since with a growing sense of the injustice of certain 
lines of demarkation that were ineffaceable and inevit- 
able — lines that, after his days of schooling, left him 
stranded midway between the things that were his 
by birthright and the things he had promptly learned 
how to value above that birthright. He remembered 
how, when the agony of his first bashfulness wore 
itself out, and the fascination of learning seized upon 
him violently, with what pride he had entered the lists 
against Al and Fred, all heavily handicapped as he 
was. They were generous-hearted boys, those rich 
sons of the rich Colonel, and the rivalry between them 
and the son of their father's overseer was of that 
generous sort that did good all around. 

He remembered the glow of triumph that came into 
his mother's sallow cheeks, that Saturday morning 
when the Colonel stopped his horse by the cistern-shed 
that belonged to the overseer's house, to utter some 
words of commendation on his progress to her, as she 
stood there churning. They were very precious in 
her ears, coming, as they did, from the austere lips of 
the highest recognized authority within her ken. He 
had two unusually large pieces of black-berry pie 
that day for dessert, the second slice being an unsolic- 
ited tribute to his mental acquirements. 

But the days had come when Al and Fred went off 
to college, and the theological student who had been 
the tutor at the big house for three years was suc- 
ceeded by a musical young lady, w^ho was fitted to carry 
the Colonel's daughter triumphantly through the 



CAP SUTTON'S CHANCE. 231 

smaller and narrower gate to the temple of learning, 
better suited to her feminine capacity, and Cap had 
had his chance, and was prepared now (presumably) 
to cope with the world on that lower plane in which it 
had pleased God to place his father and his mother. 

He no longer made daily pilgrimages to the up-stairs 
room at the big house, whose dormer windows looked 
out over the hills where the conical cedars grew in 
native liberality. He could see its white dotted muslin 
curtains fluttering in the breeze from the gallery of 
the overseer's house, that seemed small and mean and 
dirty now, since it had been put in such violent con- 
trast with the oil-clothed halls and the matted floors 
of the master's house. They had not thrown him back 
on himself unprovided for in certain ways. On the 
day when school broke up and the theological student 
made them an unnecessarily solemn farewell address 
that impressed them all with a vague feeling that the 
day of doom was startlingly near, AI and Fred had 
loaded him down with their books. They were going 
away to Yale for four years, they told him, with an 
irrepressible ring of importance in their young voices, 
and by the time they got back they would have out- 
grown the old books. And the Colonel had bestowed 
a lot of good advice on him and had instanced many 
great men who had achieved renown with less of a 
foundation than he had to begin on. And Nellie had 
given him a very small and very hard pin-cushion made 
of little octagons of silk, lined with pasteboard, whose 
edges showed a solid phalanx of pinheads. It was a 
rigid sort of a cushion, nothing soft or yielding about 
it, conceived on a purely utilitarian basis and given in 



232 CAP SUTTON'S CHANCE. 

a spirit of girlish consideration for some one less 
'' well off " than herself. 

'' Cap " had taken the books, and the advice, and 
the pin-cushion, and returned his stolid, unemo- 
tional thanks without a break in his voice, while all 
the time he had been making violent efforts to swallow 
a big lump in his throat, and then he had gone back to 
the overseer's house and put the books on some shelves 
he knocked together from the sides of a dry-goods 
box, and had wrapped the hard little pin-cushion up 
in a piece of silver foil taken from his father's smoking 
tobacco. What he did with the Colonel's advice he 
could never clearly recall. He supposed those fel- 
lows that had done such big things on such slim 
foundations had lived where there was something to 
do, where there was something going on, and he didn't. 
He had found this much out from his books : the world 
was not bounded on the east by the Mississippi River, 
and its commerce was not confined to the loads of 
cotton-bales that his father shipped every fall to the 
city on the Colonel's behalf. Yes, he had learned that 
much. He had learned more. He had learned that 
there was something stirring within his own active 
young body that made him dissatisfied and restless 
and impatient of inactivity. He fancied a callow bird 
might experience some such sensation at watching the 
slow growth of its own helpless wings while longing 
for the coming of the test moment. 

Would his test moment ever come ? How could it ? 
He saw no avenues of enterprise or effort, opening 
before him. He saw certain white men around him 
leading lives of luxurious ease, spending their days 



CAP SUTTON'S CHANCE. 233 

and their substance in seeming security of their inex- 
haustibility. He saw certain other white men spending 
their days in unintellectual rounds of sordid responsi- 
binty. The sphere he was predestined to, involved 
rising before the faintest streak of dawn, hastily con- 
suming a regular portion of hot cornbread and fried 
bacon and black coffee, before riding away to a monot- 
onous supervision of plows that ran the same furrows 
over the same ground spring after spring, or hoes that 
must exercise the same painful precision every year in 
cutting out just so many tender cotton plants and leav- 
ing just so many others. It involved the coming home 
to a noon interim devoted to the issuing of so much 
meal and pork, or the distribution of so many plugs 
of black tobacco for " extra jobs." It involved the 
monotonous discussion of all the crops in the neigh- 
borhood with the other overseers, who would ride over 
of Sundays, and either dismount and fill the splint- 
bottom chairs that furnished the galleries or else com- 
pose themselves comfortably sidewise in their saddles 
to exhaust the budget of local gossip while their 
horses contentedly gnawed the projecting planks of 
the gallery floor into ragged fringes. He could never 
recall that these animated discussions had ever in- 
cluded any topics but the crops — who was in the grass, 
who was out of it, who had " sore shin " cotton and 
who hadn't— the condition of somebody's fence, and 
the prospect of every body being eaten up by worms — 
not the ultimate destiny of sinful mankind after inter- 
ment, but the swift ruin to which it was liable at the 
hands, or the voracious mouths rather, of the cotton- 
worm. 



234 CAP SUTTON'S CHANCE. 

Before those days at the big house, where he had 
sat behind the white muslin curtains that now seemed 
to shut him out from Paradise, and Hstened to the 
theological student reading Plutarch's Lives and com- 
menting on them, these Sunday gatherings at the 
overseer's house had been social events toward which 
Cap had always looked forward with pleasurable antici- 
pation. There was no Sunday-school to go to, and 
his mother was rigid in excluding him from his reti- 
nue of little darkies on that sacred day ; it was the 
one religious rite she performed zealously. The talk 
of the men from the other plantations then had lent a 
flavor of variety to the day that had always been 
acceptable. But things were different now. 

He wondered if it would be possible for him to get 
away from it and do something. He was not quite cer- 
tain what. Of course the experiment would take a little 
money to start with. He would broach the subject. 
He did. He selected the day and hour disastrously. 
He sometimes wondered afterwards, if the result 
would have been different if he had made a happier 
choice of time. It made him feel like the merest 
puppet in the hands of fate. He had always stood in 
unreasonable awe of his father. The role of over- 
seer did not give much play for the amenities of life, 
nor for the cultivation of the domestic graces, and he 
was accustomed to sit at table between a care-worn, 
anxious-faced woman at one end and a dark-browed, 
severely taciturn man at the other. He had no means 
of knowing, on the especial occasion he selected for 
casting the die so important to himself, that every 
thing had gone wrong with his father that day ; that 



CAP SUTTON'S CHANCE. 235 

the mule team had bogged in the woods with its eight 
bales of cotton, and the wagon had broken down under 
the strain, leaving its load in the muddy road instead 
of on _the wharf-boat ; that the belting that ran the 
gin-stands had been running off the pulleys in the 
most incomprehensible manner all day, and, worse 
than all, that the mules had broken fence the night 
before, and destroyed an incalculable amount of the 
standing corn. Fate maliciously decreed that on the 
heels of these vexations the overseer's son should 
make the mild request for enough money to leave 
home and try to make something for himself. His 
request simply provided a vent. He never repeated 
it. He ceased looking outward and forward for ave- 
nues that were unattainable even when he caught a 
glimpse of them. 

In the after years, when his father died, his mother 
having gone before, the Colonel offered to make him 
his successor. He refused the offer with loathing. It 
was with bitter surprise that he found out how much 
money had been hoarded up all these years — money 
that might have unlocked the world to him in his 
ambitious dciys. He could gratify his desire to do 
something now if he chose. But the desire was dead. 
It was too late. He could not be the thing he wanted 
to be — he would not be what his father had been. 

It was then that he opened up the little place for 
himself and went to live there alone. He took noth- 
ing from the old overseer's house but the rough 
shelves with the books on them that Al and Fred had 
given him. People said he was a good man to have 
in the county. He was always willing to do hi§ 



2T,() CAP S177'7VjV'S CHANCE, 

share in any thing that was for the public good. But 
he was "a queer fellow." He accumulated books 
faster than any thing else, and a traveling minister, 
who stopped at his house one night and at the Colo- 
nel's the next, declared emphatically that he was the 
best read man he'd ever met outside the walls of a 
college. Whenever strangers speak of Cap Sut- 
ton enthusiastically, the natives smile indulgently. 
They begin to value him as a sort of local curiosity 
that lends a tinge of interest to an otherwise monot- 
onous landscape. " He is a character," according 
to them. In his own estimation he is a victim of a 
chance that was either too much or too little. He 
scarcely knows whether, if he should see a dug-out 
capsize with a scared wretch in it again, he would 
swim out to the rescue or not. He had not meant to 
be " heroic " when he did it, and he had been very 
severely punished for his reckless plunge into the 
cold water. He had been breasting cold waves ever 
since. 

Once in a great w^hile he rides over to Colonel 
Rafe's. He is a handsome spectacle on his big black 
horse. When he rode over the last time, Mrs. Rafe 
caught the new governess's eyes resting on him ap- 
provingly. It put an idea into her head. 

Supposing Cap and the governess should make 
a match of it ! She would make him get down to be 
introduced next time. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



MISS FANNIE AND THE GIN BURNERS. 

^^ TT was the slave owner's fight, the rich man's war. 
1 All the questions involved were of vital import 
to him alone who had something to lose. Why should 
the man who had never owned a slave or been bur- 
thened with a superfluous dollar be dragged into it, or 
go into it voluntarily ? " Men engaged in a hand-to- 
hand contest with an adverse fate for daily subsis- 
tence are not the ones who find leisure or inclina- 
tion for ethical hair-splitting, or for a daring disposi- 
tion of large issues. The argument just quoted was 
the argument of idle malcontents. The man who did 
not own his slaves was without the charmed circle in 
the agricultural districts of the South unless he be- 
longed to one of the learned professions, which were 
the bulwarks and pillars of the social fabric. Of 
course things were different in the cities. But as 
the leading social element there, the commission mer- 
chant, was, after all, but an offshoot of the leading 
social element in the country, a necessary outcome, as 
it were, of cotton-planting, the principle held good, 
and the man who was neither cotton-planter, doctor, 
lawyer, nor minister was very heavily handicapped, or 
would have been if the rivalry for social eminence had 
been as real a thing in that languorous atmosphere as 



23^ M/SS FANNIE AND THE GIN BURNERS. 

it is in colder climes, where a surplus of energy 
inspires more vigorous desires in that direction. 

The man who had never owned his slave was curi- 
ously perhaps, at a discount with the negroes them- 
selves. According to Sambo, he who had to labor 
with his own hands was a plebeian, unworthy of that 
ready deference the black man showed by instinct to 
the white man, upon whom nature had bestowed such 
visible supremacy. Their process of reasoning, for 
there was a substratum of reason in their antipathy for 
" po' w'ite trash," was more subtle than appears at the 
first glance. To the black man there was but one uni- 
versal cause for his own physical, moral, and mental 
inferiority to the dominant class. It lay simply in the 
difference of color. To him the volumes devoted to 
arguments for or against his being an inferior sort of 
biped to the white, even the doubtful possessor of a 
soul endowed with like needs, were as if they had 
never been written or read. Sambo regarded this 
world from the low level of unenlightened material- 
ism. It was a first-rate world, a sort of sublunary 
paradise, indeed, to the white man who lived on the 
fruits of his (Sambo's) labor. It was a jolly sort of 
world to Sambo himself after work hours, especially 
of Saturday nights, when the fiddle was scraping in 
the dance-house, or the pumpkins were ready to be 
stewed in black molasses, or cold weather revolved 
again with its matchless delights of spare-ribs and 
cracklin' bread. His life, if not spent on a flowery 
bed of ease, was minus that element of responsibility 
which is the thorn in so many an otherwise flowery 
bed. He was sure of being taken care of, and his one 



MISS FANNIE AND THE GIN BURNERS. 239 

concern was to see that his allotted daily task was well 
and promptly performed. But the man who had 
neither a master to take care of him, nor slaves to 
minister to his comfort, was a sort of abnormal creat- 
ure, without any distinctive social status nor any 
especial place in the cosmos of Sambo's conceiving. 
This is why such men as Cap Sutton were the objects 
of a sort of contemptous pity from him, that was irri- 
tating though innocuous. Holding, as he (Sambo) 
did, that the question of superiority was merely a 
question of white or black, and believing that if he 
could but slough his dark integument like a cocoon, 
he too might go through the glorious transfiguration 
that awaits the chrysalis, how could he feel otherwise 
than contemptuous towards the man who, given a 
white skin, remained by free choice a grub ? 

The independence of life led by the man who sat- 
isfied the crying needs of his body by marketing (by 
proxy always) the proceeds of his duck hunts, his 
seine fishing, his deer and bear excursions " back in 
the woods," did not appeal to any inborn sense of 
freedom in Sambo's breast. The desire for freedom 
was not inborn in the negro's breast. He had to be 
educated into appreciation of it, slowly and laboriously, 
after many years, and no greater proof of this fact 
could be given than the tender and unresentful remin- 
iscences of his days of bondage which the ex-slave will 
pour into any listening ear. There was no sense of 
degradation commingled with his period of servitude. 
When the clarion cry of liberty first rang through the 
land, he listened to it with the dazed but listless 
curiosity of some wild creature suddenly aroused from 



240 M/SS FANNIE AND THE GIN BURNERS. 

long and peaceful slumber. That it appealed to him 
individually, that it was a call to him to arise and 
gird up his loins for the battle of life, all undisciplined 
as he was, did not, happily for him, suggest itself. It 
might have appalled him if he had. Deeds of '' der- 
ring do " were not in his line. Matters that dealt with 
guns and swords and pistols and free action on pran- 
cing horses were strictly within the white man's prov- 
ince, and Sambo could not conceive of any white 
man, especially a young and lusty white man, and 
more especially a young man who " cut such a dash 
on horseback " as Cap Sutton did, forbearing to don 
the gray. The earlier stages of the civil contest 
presented themselves in the light of grand equestrian 
displays, and it was only after the ranks of the cavalry 
had been filled to plethora that infantry service 
received its full meed of attention. 

It was in view of this fact that Cap Sutton's big 
black horse " Othello " served as a text in the mouth 
of the only person privileged to preach to him. That 
was Aunt Ailsy. 

When the overseer's son had made a little clearing 
in the heart of the tract of woodland which he had 
bought with his father's hoarded salary, and had built 
on it the small roughly weather-boarded house which 
was ample for his solitary occupancy, he had '^knocked 
up " three still smaller shanties — one for a servant's 
house, one for a kitchen, and the other (with a " lean- 
to " for the hens), was Othello's optional retreat from 
wind and weather. When the time for Cap's removal 
to his little stumpy field of action came, an unexpected 
proffer of attendance came from Aunt Ailsy and her 



A/IS:^ FANiVIE AMD THE GIJST Bl/J^MEJiS. 24I 

husband, and he accepted it. It was Aunt Ailsy who 
made the proposition. 

" You see, son, me en old Dave is ben 'bout w'ite 
folks too long now fur to settle down cumfubble wid 
de quarter niggers, en dis new overseer dat's comin' 
is got his own black folks pick out. Me en Dave's 
too ole t' suit 'im. Yo' ma was a rale good w'ite woman 
as ever live. She nuss me frew de cholery same lak 
I b'long t' her, en Dave too. I ben to de big house 
en tell Mars me en Dave ain' no 'count for fieP work, 
en we 'lows to go long wid you, en I'll cook en ten* 
house fur you, en Dave, he'll mek yo' gyardin* en ten' 
' Fello ' fur you. En Mars, he says you's mouty out- 
settin' 'bout fusin' t' tek yo' pa's old place, but ef you 
keers to hev we, we kin go 'long wid you. Ailsy ain' 
forgit how yo' ma nuss her frew de cholery yit. So 
when you leave de old place you got to tek we 'long 
too." She said this knowing she would lose caste in 
the quarters, but Aunt Ailsy had an eye to the main 
chance. 

And gradually, as the years had gone by, in which 
Cap Sutton had hunted, and fished, and read, and 
moodily philosophized about the social inequalities 
of this world, and had made occasional incursions 
into town for a fresh supply of smoking tobacco 
or powder or fishing-tackle [maintaining that some- 
what surly intercourse with the men of the neighbor- 
hood that sprang from his sense of isolation], riding 
over still more rarely to Colonel Rafe's on Othello, 
whose shining black hide was a tribute to Dave's 
industry ; Dave had cleared the little corn-field 
more and more from the black stumps, and had 



242 MISS FANNIE AND THE GIN BURNERS. 

raised wonderful crops of corn and sweet potatoes 
and pindars on it, and had come to feel quite like a 
bloated property-holder, so little did Cap interfere 
with him ; and Aunt Ailsy had 'tended house and 
washed and mended for its easily pleased owner, and 
had planted cypress vines and purple beans about 
the little front gallery, and watched the outgoings and 
incomings of the overseer's son until her position had 
assumed the dignity of privy councilor. She was 
not without tact. Cap had certain moods and tenses 
which she had learned to read and respect, and, on 
the other hand, he had learned the signs that be- 
tokened surcharged emotion on Aunt Ailsy's part. 
He knew he had given quite a shock to her pride in 
him when the first regiment of cavalry had left the 
county without him. She had hovered about the 
room that night a long time after she had carried 
away the last of the tea things, and swept the brick 
hearth until not a fleck of the red dust clung to the 
brown straws, and had wiped the lamp-chimney with 
her apron until it shone again, and blown all the dust 
off his books with her vigorous lungs, and then stood 
irresolutely looking at him with that pathetic interest 
which almost always touched the heart of the 
"Solitary," as one of the romantic young ladies of the 
neighborhood had called him. 

On that occasion he had laid down his brier- 
wood pipe and shut up his book to ask, " Well, old 
lady ? " 

" I see the soljers march to-day, son. 01' mars' 
boys was wid 'em. Dey look real fine. Der worn' 
noneuv 'm es good lookin' 'es you, nor Fello nuther" 



MISS FANNIE AND THE GIN BURNERS. 243 

(Aunt Ailsy could never cope with the Moor's name), 
" an' I 'lowed you ought to be 'long wid 'em. Ef 
you's a min' t' go, you needn't bother 'bout de house 
en yard, me en Dave '11 look arter things fur de little 
whiles you gone. I hear Mars' Al en' Mars' Freddie 
say it won't tek but little time to win' up dis foolish- 
ness. You en Fello would cut a dash, son, dress up 
dat way." Aunt Ailsy was profoundly ignorant of 
any political point at issue, trebly so of any moral 
point of personal concern to herself. Her relation- 
ship to the overseer's son, at whose birth she had 
officiated as wise woman, was analogous to Mammy's 
at the big house, only on a humbler scale. She was 
not able to grasp the subtleties that set him apart in 
his lusty young manhood from the youths and 
maidens of his own age, and resented that so fine an 
opportunity to show off himself and Othello should be 
lost through what seemed unnatural supineness on his 
part. Hence her efforts to stir the sluggish pulses of 
his patriotism into quicker action. It was a dismal 
failure. He had looked up at her with a certain 
narrowing of his large eyes as he said slowly : 

" It's none of my fight, Aunt Ailsy. It's Fred and 
Al's quarrel. I wish 'em well out of it — that's all 
there is about it." 

That was all there was about it, except, that as time 
went on and more and more men went out of the 
county to help settle the quarrel, and those who re- 
mained regarded him more and more sourly, resentful 
that so much of vigor should be retained from the 
ranks of the fighters, he withdrew more and more 
bitterly within himself, trying to forget the world that 



^44 MISS FANNIE AND THE GIN BURNERS. 

was waging its fight of to-day over the issues of 
to-day in the bygone world and the finished fights and 
the dead issues that lived again for him between the 
leaves of his books, his only friends and comforters 
besides Aunt Ailsy and old Dave. 

'' Sutton's Clearing " was off the main road, and it 
was only by penetrating to it through a dense bit of 
woodland that it was reached. Small wonder then, as 
the distant war in Virginia drained the country of its 
sparse population, fewer and fewer feet turned aside 
from the big road attracted by the curling of the 
smoke from Cap Sutton's chimney or by the sound of 
Dave's ax-stroke. The links that bound him to this 
world seemed so few and frail that he wondered at 
himself in a sort of contemptuous surprise that he had 
not long ago given himself up as food for powder. 
True, there was an underlying principle in his staying 
at home, but no one knew of it, and if they did would 
have regarded it as just one more stain on his 
'scutcheon. All that he knew of life he knew 
theoreticalh^ There was nothing wrong in owning 
slaves that he could see. Doubtless, if he had been 
born at the big house, instead of at the overseer's 
house in the quarter lot, he would have been in hotter 
haste than Fred or Al had been to spring to the de- 
fense of his rights. But having nothing at stake, he 
had been better qualified for looking at the question 
all around, and in his unaided judgment he had de- 
cided that the precedent of secession was a bad one. 
He took no high moral grounds. He was quite sure 
that the white people of his section were making a 
mistake, but in his aloofness he often grew so mor- 



MISS FANNIE AND THE GIN BURNERS. 245 

bidly disgusted with inaction that he was half -tempted 
to throw himself in'.o the thing on one side or the 
other, just to end the never-ending discussion over it 
that his own reason waged against his own beUigerent 
instincts. He was so absolutely sure that there was 
not the faintest tinge of cowardice in his soul that he 
never considered vindication necessary on that 

score. 

Into this scene of moral and physical isolation a 
small personality was intruded late one afternoon as 
he paced restlessly up and down the rough planks of 
his little gallery with his shapely brown hands clutch- 
ing at the lapels of his jeans coat. It was 'Mandy, 
'Mandy, who had belonged soul and body to the 
governess over at Colonel Rafe Sutton's ever since 
that first night of acquaintanceship that had resulted 
in a midnight turmoil in ' Mandy 's awakened con- 
science. Not that what she had insisted upon calling 
" gitten religion " had had an appreciable effect upon 
'Mandy outwardly, unless, indeed, in a short-lived 
resolution not to countenance the Saturday evening's 
dance at the quarters, or in a lugubrious inclination 
to groan aloud on subsequent occasions whenever 
the governess had been reading to her of nights 
from the Bible ; but 'Mandy, being fully satisfied of 
her own regeneration, was correspondingly devoted to 
the agent of that regeneration, and the girl from 
Boston found herself the virtual possessor of at least 
one devoted slave. 

On the occasion in question 'Mandy had been in- 
trusted with a very delicate mission, so delicate that the 
governess had drilled her ambassadress by word of 



246 MISS FANNIE AND THE GIN BURNERS. 

mouth, fearful of involving some one else in trouble 
if she should commit her message to paper. 

Cap stopped in his aimless tread of the respon- 
sive planks to look amazedly at 'Mandy when she first 
appeared. She had emerged suddenly from the close 
ranks of the trees, plunging her ashy bare heels vigo- 
rously into the left flank of an unhappy-looking mule, 
who hung his head in dejected [consciousness of his 
own absurd appearance. 

'Mandy had captured him with some difficulty in the 
broad open corn-field where the cockle-burrs had dis- 
puted supremacy with the neglected grain and grown 
rankly up to the time of their ripening, which was the 
time of confusion for every thing that split the hoof. 
'Mandy's mule bristled with masses of the brown cling- 
ing burrs. Its tail stood rigidly out, in one unyielding 
mass of them. Across its bare back she had flung an 
old gunny-sack, and between its unwilling jaws she had 
thrust the rusty snaffle-bit to her rope bridle. The 
exertion of urging her steed to its utmost speed had 
disarranged her draperies somewhat, and her head- 
handkerchief was prevented from parting company 
with her head altogether by a vicious grip of its flut- 
tering ends, which she maintained with her strong 
white teeth. 

Cap watched her with a grim smile as she clam- 
bered down over the rail fence, on top of which 
she dismounted and to whose ^* rider " she attached 
her burry mule. 'Mandy was affected with no 
false modesty touching her burr-proof ankles, of 
which she made unblushing exhibition before she 
alighted on the ground, and ran nimbly toward the 



MISS FANNIE AND THE GIN BURNERS. 247 

gallery with a face full of importance, tying her 
bandanna afresh as she ran. 

** Miss Fannie say I was to git yhere in a hurry," she 
said, projecting her eager voice in advance of her 
scurrying feet, " en she say I was to ax you did you 
know de gin burners was 'bout ag'in ? " 

" Gin burners ! Fools ! " 

He stopped amazedly. He knew that six months 
before nearly every gin in the lower part of the county 
had been burned by order of a man who had gone 
out in command of one of the earlier companies, and 
who enunciated the remarkable theory that the 
sooner every bale of cotton was destroyed the quicker 
the struggle would end, quite as if the contest were 
being waged for or against material benefits on either 
side rather than for a deathless principle. He 
knew that the hoarded and hidden substance o£ 
many a man who had lost his all besides, and who 
was clinging to his hidden cotton as a future 
resource against actual want, had been discovered 
and consigned to the flames. He supposed that 
phase of madness had passed away and the frenzied 
ebullition of patriotism which had dictated it had 
long since subsided ; but here was 'Mandy, ragged 
and barefooted, panting out her startling information 
of its revival as dictated by the governess with an 
earnestness which compelled credence. She was 
elated withal : 

'* Yas, siree, dey is dat, en Miss Fannie tol' me 
t' tell you she skeered t' write, fear somebody 
mout tek de letter from me, but I lak t' see de 
man could tek a letter from me (rising inflection). I 



248 MISS FA A' A' IE AND THE GIN BURNERS. 

chaw em up fus'." (Whether the letter, or the inter- 
meddler was to be "chawed up," 'Mandy did not stop 
to explain.) " En Miss Fannie, she say, she 'lowed 
ef you knowed how much trouble de w'ite folks at de 
big house was in, mebbe you'd try to holp 'em some. 
En she say as how I was t' tell you she heern de gin 
burners would be dar dis' ve'y night, en po' Mars 
Conel he down wid tiphone fever, en Mars Al — he 
daid, en Miss Nellie she don' do nuthin' but cry, en 
cry, en cry." 

Yes, he had known it all. But what could he do ? 
He had felt several times since hearing of Al's death 
as if it was a sort of pity that it hadn't been himself 
instead, but somehow or other things never did work 
quite right in this world. He had been very fond of 
Al. He was a manly, straightforward fellow, with no 
rich man's nonsense about him. True he. Cap, re- 
membered smiling a trifle scornfully when he had 
heard about the dressing-gown and the darkey valet 
Al had started out with as part of his soldier's outfit ; 
but he had died a hero's death for all that, and he 
knew that the big house that had once been opened to 
him to give him a chance had been the scene of bitter 
mourning since. And he knew that, all things being 
equal, life could have furnished him no sweeter duty 
than to have comforted Miss Nellie, Al's sister, and to 
have wiped every tear from her eyes ; but the gulf 
between him and the people at the big house had been 
widening every year, until now they seemed to live in 
another planet, so distant that it seemed presumption 
even for fancy to penetrate into its rarified atmos- 
phere. Yes, he knew all about the troubles that had 



MISS FANNIE AND THE GIN BURNERS. 249 

overtaken the Colonel in his old age. But what could 
he do ? What did this wide-awake governess over at 
his cousin Rafe's mean by sending her ragged ambas- 
sadress to notify him ? 'Mandy stood before him, 
with her claw-like hands hanging limply down by her 
side, and her thick lips slightly apart. There was a 
mild flavor of the immortal Casablanca in her attitude 
of sturdy patience. Her bead-black eyes scanned his 
face eagerly. She would not go without some word of 
response for her darling Miss Fannie. The overseer's 
son flung it at her presently, and she snapped at it as 
a patient dog snaps at the long-waited-for morsel in 
mid-air : 

" Tell her I'll see what I can do." 

** Yaas, sir." 'Mandy's glittering teeth closed over 
the words with a snap, and turning about without even 
the ceremony of a courtesy, she clambered once more 
over the rail fence, with the agility of a monkey, 
and was soon again plunging her bare heels into the 
leathern sides of her mule. 

It was scarcely an hour later when Othello went 
crashing over the same ground. Cap had only waited 
long enough to see that the beast had consumed his 
last ear of corn and had been well-watered. If it 
were ever a choice between his going hungry and 
thirsty or Othello's suffering, there would have 
been no doubt about the choice. While Othello 
had been consuming his rations with unfeeling 
deliberation, he had been examining the condition of 
the big navy revolvers that always hung in their black 
holsters on the nail behind his bed's head, and putting 
a fresh charge into the shotgun that stood in the cor- 



250 MISS FANNIE AND THE GIN BURNERS. 

ner of the room hidden by the armoir. It was dark 
when he and Othello plunged into the woods, but they 
needed no sense of sight to guide them over the 
familiar path. It was darker still when they found 
themselves in front of the gleaming white fence that 
outlined the Colonel's handsome yard premises 
against the rest of the plantation. He could see 
lights burning dimly in the different rooms of the 
house as he cantered slowly by. He reined his big 
black horse into a slower gait when he came in sight 
of the big house. He must ride past it, through the 
old quarter lot, by the overseer's house, where he had 
first seen the light, to reach the threatened gin-house. 
For one fleeting second nature asserted her supremacy, 
and he gave himself up to a passion of longing for 
one glimpse of the sweet girl-face, whose pure patri- 
cian outlines had dwelt with him vividly all through 
the lonely years of his useless manhood. It was 
vouchsafed him : 

A lurid glare ! A tongue of upward-leaping 
flame, and the big house stood revealed as in the 
broadest sunlight. He stuck his sharp spurs fiercely 
into Othello's flanks. The black horse leaped for- 
ward with a snort of surprise and indignation. His 
rider cast one upward look at the little room with the 
dormer window where he had gone to meet his chance. 
The curtains were drawn aside, and framed in by the 
dark woodwork was a white startled face, illumined 
by the dancing flames up yonder beyond the quarter 
lot. Again and again the sharp rowels were plunged 
into Othello's smoking flanks, while the flecks of 
white foam from his bit-tortured mouth flew back on 



MISS FANNIE AND THE GIN BURNERS. 251 

his glossy sides. Cap Sutton rode like a madman 
that night. His experienced eye had located the 
flames at once. It was not the Colonel's gin. It was 
Marsden's. They would reach the Colonel's next. 
How he was to save it he could not conceive. These 
men came armed with the authority of the military. 
This destruction of private property was condoned 
under the head of military necessity. But whatsoever 
one man could do to defy the many, that he proposed 
to do. 

As he galloped through the quarters he gathered 
around him once more his motley following. They were 
freed men now. But they were docile and biddable 
still. They caught the inspiration of his fiery glance 
and ringing voice. He paused in their midst long 
enough to shout : 

" Boys, if you'll stand by me, we'll save the old 
man's gin for him yet. He's suffered and sacrificed 
his share already. Think of Al ! " 

Then he plunged forward in the direction of the dark 
mass of brick and wood brought prominently into view 
by the flames that were consuming its neighbor. The 
crops of two years were piled up under its capacious 
roof. There was no place to ship it to. There was 
no one to buy it. With the speed of an experienced 
campaigner, Cap drew a dark cordon about the gin. 
He had not much faith in his untried forces, but, after 
all, the whole thing was a desperate chance. Then 
he faced Othello in the direction the gin burners must 
come from and waited only a little while. They came 
galloping briskly presently. Theirs was no act of 
mere incendiarism. They were doing what they had 



252 MISS FANNIE AND THE GIN BURNERS. 

been commanded to do : " Theirs not to question 
why." 

Then Cap Sutton had recourse to the emotional 
for the first time in his blunt life. He faced 
them promptly, and reminded them of all the old man, 
lying sick at the house yonder, had already given up 
to the cause they too were battling for. He appealed 
to their own sense of justice to defend the Colonel's 
property. His right to stop them was sharply chal- 
lenged. His name was curtly demanded. 

" Sutton " — he gave it sullenly. He knew it carried 
no prestige with it. 

*' Sutton ! " It was repeated with a brutal laugh of 
scorn. ^' The overseer's son, that's been skulking in 
the woods ever since the fight begun ! " 

There were no words known to Cap's vocabulary 
that could answer this taunt. There was a flash 
and another and another, then a confused sound of 
galloping horses' feet, and Othello, riderless, was 
among them. 

. . . " What a mercy it was," Mrs. Rafe Sutton 
said to her husband on the night when she had the 
proud pleasure of receiving the Colonel and his wife 
under her roof for the first time, '' that Cap had 
enough breath left in his body that night to tell the 
folks to bring him here instead of to the Colonel's. 
If it hadn't been for her nursing him through that 
time. Cap never would have found out what a good 
wife Miss Fannie could make, and he'd 'a' lived and 
died alone in that shanty in the woods. Now look at 
him." 

** It was a lucky thing he had that little pin- 



MISS FANNIE AND THE GIN BURNERS. 253 

cushion in his vest pocket," Colonel Rafe Sutton an- 
swered meditatively. " The doctor says it was the 
bullet's hittin' it and glancin' that saved him and sent 
the ball meant for his heart into his rib. But Cap 
always was a lucky dog ; and he's got a stunner of a 
wife." 

It was gratitude for the saving of many thousands 
of dollars' worth of property and his stately gin-house 
that brought the Colonel and his soft-voiced wife in 
person to grace the wedding-feast of Cap Sutton 
and Miss Fannie. When they went back home to 
the big house they told the story of the little silk 
pin-cushion that had been the means of saving his 
life. The Colonel's daughter flushed faintly at her 
mother's prolix description of the cushion, which Mrs. 
Rafe had surreptitiously displayed, no one knew exact- 
ly why. But Cap always thought the little cushion 
had wiped out all his scores against the big house. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



DAVENPORT S. 



EVERYBODY knew where Davenport's was, and 
everybody made pilgrimages to it in the hour of 
need. No matter whether the need took the form 
of a spool of sewing silk or iron castings for gin 
stands — somewhere among Davenport's heteroge- 
neous stock it was sure to be found. " Davenport's " 
displayed no sign. It was proudly independent of any 
such factitious aids to prominence. As well label the 
county Court House as plaster a sign on Davenport's 
time-honored front. There was but one court house 
and but one Davenport's, and honors were easy 
between them in Slowville. Furthermore (apropos of 
a sign) human ingenuity would have been staggered 
to compose any inscription for a sign that would have 
been even measurably descriptive of the olla podrida 
on Davenport's shelves. (There was a Davenport, 
also, but as he is merely incidental to " Daven- 
port's," he can bide his time for an introduction. 
Davenport's would have been Davenport's if Daven- 
port had been completely effaced). 

Considering its intensely utilitarian character, it was 
not an unpicturesque-looking object, with its gray 
and moss-grown shingle roof, and its broad plaza in 
front, shaded by Prides of China whose purple 



DA VENPOR T'S. 255 

blossoms scented the air in the spring-time and whose 
yellow balls tempted the robins to the crime of drunk- 
enness in the winter time. The Prides of China were 
all boxed about to protect them from the nibbling 
propensities of the horses and mules that congregated 
thickly about Davenport's every Saturday and on 
mail days ; and when their dark, glossy foliage was at 
its fullest, and the boxes had received their spring- 
whitewashing, the long, low gallery that skirted the 
store on two sides afforded the pleasantest rendezvous 
in all Slowville. 

In the absence of a local newspaper, Davenport's 
served as an advertising medium, and its weather- 
boarded sides were plastered thickly over with written 
placards of neighborhood interest. By attention to 
these bulletins the public was made aware that Ben 
Forest would soon be along with a fresh lot of mules 
and Texas ponies for sale ; that divine service would 
be held in the Court House by the Rev. Samuel Patter- 
son, on the third Sunday in April ; that Colonel Ray- 
mond's Alderney bull was missing (accompanying the 
announcement, an accurate and prolix description of 
the estray) ; that the election for county officers would 
take place the first week in November, and so on 
through the entire list of matters pertaining to public 
interest. Whosoever was behind the times in Slow- 
ville had only himself to thank for not consulting 
the exterior of Davenport's. How could a man grow 
insulated and selfish when he was compelled to absorb 
matters of common interest in such a sociable fashion ? 
Your town man, who reads his evening's paper in the 
luxurious privacy of his own library, possesses him- 



256 DA VENPOR T ' S. 

self dumbly of the harrowing details of his nearest 
neighbor's ruin or disgrace, and when he folds his 
newspaper up and lays it aside, is likely to fold his 
sympathy up and lay it aside also ; but the man who 
could come in contact with anything that touched his 
neighbor's welfare in the placards at Davenport's 
must perforce share the information and his views 
concerning it with the fellow who was reading it over 
his shoulder, or that other fellow who had just stepped 
aside in order to give him a chance at it. 

Thus community of interest was engendered, and in 
the multitude of counsel judicious decisions were 
approached if not always reached. Davenport him- 
self was a sort of impartial sphinx, who never gave an 
opinion on any subject. He was not going to have 
the peaceful neutral ground of his store-gallery dis- 
turbed by contending partisans under shelter of any 
" leanings " he might show. 

If the specialist must, by reason of regarding a 
single object from his chosen point of view, grow 
narrow concerning objects outside that restricted 
visual line, then Davenport, by an inverse proposition, 
was forced into a broad groove which he may not have 
originally been designed for. 

As an important personage he ranked next to 
the doctor. There were lawyers in Slowville, of 
course, lawyers w^ho lived there and slowly bat- 
tened on the mild misdeeds of their fellows, but 
then they were lawyers only. " Davenport " (I 
give the local argument) " could have beat 'em all 
hollow if he'd taken to Blackstone instead of merchan- 
dising." By absorption he had become a sort of com- 



DAVENPORT'S. 257 

pendium of common law and statute. He had never 
missed a trial at the court house in Slowville for 
twenty years. In minor disputes, when the decision of 
an umpire was preferred to the fierce wrangle of con- 
testing attorneys, Davenport was pretty sure to be 
selected for that onerous but honorable position. It 
was a rare thing for his decisions to be set aside upon 
appeal. But amateur " lawyering " was only one of 
Davenport's phases. " On a pinch, Davenport could 
preach a pretty good sermon." Not that preaching 
was in his line ; but he saw more of the visiting min- 
isters than any man in Slowville did. That was 
because of his open-handed hospitality. 

Back of the great gray two-story wooden struc- 
ture, known as '' Davenport's," was a tiny little 
white house sitting low on the ground behind 
its great tall rose and pomegranate and spirea 
bushes, almost as tall as trees, and in the tiny little 
white house was crowded all of luxury and refine- 
ment and neatness and cheerfulness that are needed 
for a perfect home, and over it all presided the 
prettiest woman in Slowville, and people said that 
a large part of Davenport's hospitality was the out- 
come of inordinate pride in his wife. 

He could not endure that any stranger of distinc- 
tion should pass through Slowville without sharing 
the hospitality of the little house behind the pome- 
granates and doing homage to its presiding deity. 
There were two dainty "spare rooms" under its 
roof, and one of these had come to seem quite like 
a home to the Rev. Samuel Patterson during his 
Slowville ministrations. This is how Davenport be- 



258 DAVENPORT'S. 

came the recipient of more than his share of the doc- 
trine apportioned to his neighborhood by the rever- 
end gentleman. 

In the evenings, after the store was closed, noth- 
ing pleased its owner better than to hurry across 
the ugly store yard, strewn thickly with empty meal 
barrels and drygoods boxes, through a wicket 
gate, into that other yard, so unlike it, where the 
violet beds stretched along both sides of the bright 
red brick walk straight up to the low gallery, only 
two steps to mount ; then to make a hurried toilet, 
and to settle down for what he called a "theo- 
logical bout with parson," while " the wife " ( Daven- 
port always designated his wife by the definite article) 
sat close at hand, divided in attention between the 
basque she was wrestling with by the aid of a " fashion " 
journal, and the discussion she only partially compre- 
hended. It was the gist of these discussions, given at 
second hand, that won for Davenport such high 
polemical distinction among those of his customers 
whose opportunities had been less broad. 

There was a table in the hall of the little white 
house that was an overloaded receptacle for periodi- 
cals, and fashion-books, and circulars, etc., etc. The 
names on the wrappers were as various as their con- 
tents. In stricter latitudes Mrs. Davenport's opportu- 
nities for keeping up with the modes and with the 
current literature of the day would have been sum- 
marily curtailed by the irate representatives of the 
names on the wrappers she slipped off and on with 
dexterity and impunity. As it was, every body knew 
and nobody cared. The post-office (as represented 



^ DAVENPORT'S. 259 

by a square box full of labeled pigeon-holes, sitting 
on one end of one of the counters) was at Daven- 
port's, and as he knew to a minute, almost, when the 
slow-moving messenger on his slow-moving mule 
from each plantation would make his semi-weekly 
demand for mail matter, there was no harm in giving 
Fanny a peep at them while they would be lying in 
the pigeon-holes. Of course she never cut any 
leaves. She wouldn't be so dishonorable. 

On mail days, the activity was always great in the 
region of Davenport's. The long rack under the rain- 
shed on one side of the plaza would be crowded 
thick with animals, ranging from the handsome thor- 
oughbred of the Colonel, with its blue and white 
check saddle blanket and its costly English saddle, 
down to the harness-scarred mule, with its rope bridle 
and its folded gunny-sack intervention between its 
barefoot rider and its own ridgy spinal column. 
Within the cool shade of the Prides of China, the 
spanking buggy bays of Benny Mayo stood side by 
side with the stolid oxen, whose slowly heaving flanks 
told of the many miles that intervened between them 
and their own drinking trough. 

Mail day was Davenport's harvest day, but mat- 
ters within the store must be pressing indeed to 
force Davenport himself behind the counter. He 
looked curiously out of place weighing plug tobacco 
or drawing a quart of black molasses in pay- 
ment for a dozen eggs. There was a totally irrec- 
oncilable incongruity between him and his sur- 
roundings. He had the build of an athlete, and 
was one, without any scientific training. His 



26o Davenport* s. • 

head, superbly shaped, and set squarely on a colum- 
nar throat, was covered thickly with a yellow mass of 
short curls, and his chin with a long, silky beard of 
the same color. His eyes were blue and bright and 
penetrating. A pure Saxon type was Davenport, 
with a general suggestion of great physical strength 
and deliberate purpose about him. 

If the gray store with its assured income had 
not come to him by inheritance, doubtless he would 
have done something with himself in the world. 
As it was, he shirked the tobacco box and the 
molasses barrel whenever practicable, and in the 
long summer days, when there was not much 
doing, he read Keats and Coleridge with oblivi- 
ous delight on the long store gallery, fighting flies 
with one hand all the while. He had never been 
away from home to school, " couldn't be spared from 
the store." He had grown up in it, but had never 
grown into it. Hidden somewhere in that muscular 
organism of his was a dumb unsatisfied longing for 
better things to do and to be than fate had so far ac- 
corded him. 

When the war broke out it was with an envious 
pang he saw other fellows go off to the field. 
He would have loved to go with them, but, looking 
his duty squarely in the face by the best light he had, 
there seemed to be a stronger call to stay at home. 
The lines had not fallen to him in heroic places. 
There was no heroism in staying behind, when every 
man that could shoulder a musket was hurrying away. 
Indeed, odium was his portion, and he knew it and 
accepted it in that mute fashion of his which left so 



DA VENPOR T'S. 261 

much to conjecture. When it came to his ears that 
Randolph Fairfax said, " Davenport was afraid to join 
the army for fear that yellow beard of his might get 
powder-scorched," Davenport's blue eyes flashed 
lightning, and he clutched the yellow beard in ques- 
tion as if he would have plucked it out and cast it 
from him, but no words came. 

No one had ever given him credit for state-craft 
among his many qualifications, or for any particular 
amount of foresight. He never took any credit to 
himself in that line, or indeed in any other line, only, 
it was his serious conviction from the very first that 
the war was to be no holiday affair. But what right 
had he, a tame stay-at-home, to entertain or express 
an opinion on such tremendous issues ? No right at 
all. The gatherings at Davenport's grew slimmer and 
slimmer, as one by one the gallery frequenters doffed 
their broad-brimmed slouch hats for trim gold-laced 
caps, and their planters' suits of cottonade or jeans, 
for the gray that covered them with glory as with a 
mantle, until there was but a sorry showing — only 
Mr. Munroe, who kept a few drugs and a lot of 
gilt-edged old-fashioned stationery in a poor little 
shop at the other end of town ; Mr. Lawless, a Brit- 
isher, who made his hay while the sun shone on him 
exclusively, by buying up cotton on speculation ; Dr. 
Fuller, who was an octogenarian ; and himself, so tall, 
so stalwart, and so redundantly healthy that he was 
ashamed to think of what a superior quality of food 
for powder he was withholding from the cause. 
Women whose husbands had gone to the army, 
looked at him loweringly, and indulged freely in per- 



262 Z)A VENPOR r ' S. 

feet frenzies of patriotism whenever they found them- 
selves in the presence of Davenport's wife. Mothers 
whose sons were languishing in camp, spoke with 
bitter resentment of their heroism as contrasted with 
his lack of it. 

He was much given to going about the country on 
horseback in those early days of the war, and scant 
courtesy was his portion under many a roof where he 
stopped for a dinner or a supper in that matter-of- 
course way which was the custom of the land. No 
one refused the dinner or the supper or the night's 
lodging, but it was given with unsmiling civility. 

Rumors got afloat that Davenport was speculating ! 
Speculating in the hour of his country's peril ! Spec- 
lating in provisions at that ! A new sort of trade was 
inaugurated in the gray old store, that stood where 
the one street of Slowville crossed the long lane that 
led by a rough corduroy road back into the interior 
of the country. It was rumored that Davenport was 
trading in the most peculiar manner — bartering the 
dry-goods and the crockery and cutlery and glass- 
ware that made such a fine show on his shelves, for 
meal and corn and bacon, but refusing to dispose of a 
pound of any thing eatable on any terms. The old 
store filled up with provisions, they overflowed into 
the back-shed rooms that had been kept for hay and 
oats in ante-bellum days ; they piled up until the 
second story, that had always been kept sacred as a 
Masonic Lodge, was invaded by barrels of potatoes 
and festooned with sides of bacon. And still 
Davenport careered over the country, securing every 
thing that could be eaten, and stowing it away in loft 



DA VENPOR T'S. 263 

or cellar of the store behind the Prides of China. No 
one questioned his right to monopolize this produce 
business. Indeed, there was no one to question it — 
only a lot of helpless women and children and thrift- 
less darkies, who wondered idly what he was driving 
at. He grew into a monster in local estimation. His 
staying out of the army had secured him the con- 
tempt of the neighborhood ; his busy, earnest specu- 
lation excited its disgust and horror. Even in the 
little house behind the pomegranate bushes there were 
clouds and distrust. Davenport's wife was no longer 
proud of him. She hung her head for him, and he 
knew it — knew it, and winced under it silently, and 
thought enviously of the men who were off with the 
army, fighting and being wounded. He would gladly 
have exchanged his wounds for theirs. 

When the river was blockaded and all the country 
on both sides of the Mississippi, from Vicksburg to 
New Orleans, was virtually in a state of siege, people 
said : " Now Davenport's hour of triumph had come," 
and those who had been most open in denouncing 
him recalled their rash words regretfully. What they 
had said was all true, of course, but it had better have 
been left unsaid, for in all the country nowhere but at 
Davenport's were medicines, or sugar, and tea, and 
meal, and every thing that went to sustain life, to be 
procured. The grinders ceased grinding and the 
great mill wheels stood motionless. The ungathered 
crops remained in the fields, at the mercy of maraud- 
ing cattle. A universal paralysis seized upon the land. 
Pallid-faced women asked, what next ? 

Yes, Davenport's hour of triumph had come ! He 



264 DA VENPOR r '5. 

did not call it his hour of triumph. He simply said 
that had befallen which he had known all along must 
come. Then, judiciously, wisely, patiently, he began 
his ministrations, meting out comfort of a material 
sort with the stern impartiality of a judge on the 
bench, and the patient tenderness of a Joseph yearn- 
ing over his suffering brethren. 

Nothing that led to the relief of necessity was 
too remote for his far-reaching grasp, nothing 
too minute to secure his attention. Without price 
he gave up his hoarded substance, and long after 
white sugar became a luxury too costly for consump- 
tion on the table in the little white cottage, Ran- 
dolph Fairfax's wife had it on hers. 

There had been no one to help him bear the burden 
of the obloquy that had been his share, and now, 
when the women who had so misjudged him crowded 
about him with wordy recantations, he smiled at them 
inscrutably, and they were comforted. They said 
among themselves : " He took it so lightly, he had 
never cared much." Not much — you see there wasn't 
the making of a hero in him. All the glory was 
reserved for the men who had gone away in uniform. 

It was in the third year of the war that Randolph 
Fairfax came home wounded. Not badly, but he had 
fought splendidly and was entitled to a short respite. 
He tried hard to say something handsome and grate- 
ful to Davenport about the way he had looked after 
his wife and children during his own absence in the 
army, and he sincerely hoped those sharp and foolish 
words of his. about Davenport's beard had died from 
his memory. They had not — he felt quite sure of it. 



DA V EN FOR 7'S. 265 

when Davenport, resting his blue eyes cahnly on him 
for a moment, turned slowly on his heel and began 
giving directions about a kit of mackerel that was to 
be sent to old Mrs. Murray back in the Red Lick set- 
tlement. Fairfax did not come to the store any more 
after that, but remained closely at home on the planta- 
tion — so closely that he did not hear what Davenport 
heard one morning from the trembling lips of one of 
Fairfax's own freed slaves. 

What Davenport heard was that a posse of the 
enemy was going to raid the neighborhood that 
night to capture Major Fairfax ; he would be a 
prisoner well worth their efforts. It was with 
Davenport to warn the Major of his danger. 
There was no one to whom he could intrust the task. 
The long lonely gallop through the woods and across 
the swollen sloughs and over the weed-grown fields 
must be taken by himself. It was accomplished safely, 
and at a slower pace he turned his tired horse's head 
homeward. He would have liked to travel faster, for 
Fanny would be worrying about his not getting home 
before dark, but he must have some mercy on the jaded 
beast under him. Thank God, Fairfax would have 
plenty of time to escape, if he started right off. It 
was dark, quite dark, when he passed from the shelter 
of the trees that marked the boundary line of Fairfax's 
place out into the big road — so dark that he did not 
see a motionless group of horsemen drawn across his 
pathway until his own horse shied violently to one side 
and the single word '' Halt ! " fell commandingly on his 
ears. 

" Fairfax's captors ! " He had only time to think it. 



266 DA VENPOR T'S. 

when the same commanding voice called question- 
ingly to him from out the gloom, *' Who goes 
there ? " 

" Randolph Fairfax," came back clearly, unfalter- 
ingly, defiantly. A gurgle of laughter, or rather a 
chorused chuckle of triumph, and then he was com- 
pletely surrounded as the posse hurried him forward 
away from Slowville. 

It was not of himself that he was thinking as 
he galloped through the somber woods with his 
captors that night. It was of the wife, of Fanny, 
watching and wondering and weeping through 
the long hours alone. It was time he was bear- 
ing his share of hardships. If it was not for her, 
he wouldn't mind. Perhaps, when light came, they'd 
give him a chance to write back to her. He couldn't 
have done differently. Fairfax was crippled and poorly 
mounted. These fellows were on well-fed army horses. 
It wouldn't have done to risk the truth. On and on 
through the night, until, in the gray dawn of the day, 
camp was reached : a brief respite, and then he found 
himself on board a transport. It would be easy enough 
when he got to head-quarters to satisfy the general in 
command that he was no military man, but a law-abid- 
ing civilian, staying at home and pursuing his usual 
avocations. 

When he got to head-quarters and made his state- 
ment his blue eyes fairly flashed lightning to find it 
discredited. His interlocutor's skeptical gaze traveled 
slowly down one of Davenport's shapely legs and up 
the other. Davenport's own gaze followed wonder- 
ingly and his brown cheeks turned ashen white. He 



DA VENPOR T'S. 26^ 

told all about it after his release from Alton military 
prison at the close of the war. 

" It was those confounded red stripes down the side 
of my pants that Fanny was so proud *of. You see, I 
had been in the saddle and out of reach of buying any 
new pants until I was about out of 'em. Then Fanny 
cut up her traveling shawl, and, considered as the 
work of an amateur, those pants were a success, if I 
did have to go into a corner and turn round three 
times before I could get my hand into my pocket ; 
but she left the bordering of the shawl in for a fancy 
touch. Poor Fanny ! I suppose she thought she'd 
make me look like a soldier whether or no, and it did 
the business for me. It was more than I could do to 
convince those fellows I wasn't a major-general at the 
very least, instead of a poor stay-at-home skulk. You 
know our boys weren't much of dandies after the first 
year." 

The gallery at Davenport's is once more a crowded 
rendezvous, and war yarns alternate with crop and 
polemical discussions ; but whenever the heroes of 
Slowville begin to blow reminiscent trumpets, Daven- 
port retires within, for if Randolph Fairfax is about, 
his (Davenport's) midnight ride with the raiders is 
sure to come up, and no one knows better than he 
that he doesn't even deserve honorable mention. 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE BOY AND THE BAYOU. 

^^ n^HEY didn't believe it was in him." "There 
1 was more come out in Gus Woodson than in 
any boy that had ever been raised about Bayou Pierre." 
(Nothing is ever reared in that locality.) " The war 
had been the making of him." '' He's grit through 
and through." 

That is the way they talk about him now. Public 
opinion, in the neighborhood of Bayou Pierre, has 
undergone several changes on the subject of Gus 
Woodson since he came back to the county from that 
expensive and useless trip to Europe which he took as 
a sort of educational supplement, of which he could 
report nothing more interesting than having seen a 
man ''making jugs." In the earlier stages of his 
career public opinion had been decidedly at variance 
with itself about him. From the utilitarian point of 
view, he seemed so entirely superfluous. It really 
seemed as if his father had sent him to Europe from 
college because there was nothing else to do with him. 
The plantation didn't need him. What with his father 
and two older brothers at home, and the overseer in 
the quarters and the foreman in the field, life was of 
necessity a sinecure to Gus Woodson, 



THE BOY AND THE BAYOU. 269 

From an aesthetic stand-point he did better. He 
made pleasing landscape effects, mounted on his mer- 
tlesome bay (between whom and himself there seemed 
a perpetual contest for mastery), or else striding act- 
ively across fields, in his chocolate-colored corduroy 
hunting suit, with its big silver buttons, his gun swung 
across his shoulders, and his well-trained hundred- 
dollar lemon-colored setter trotting decorously at his 
heels. He was a handsome young fellow. It was 
with purely amateurish interest that he rode over the 
growing crops, or halted his restless horse near the 
gin house, where the whirr of the big leathern bands 
and the drip, drip of the fuzzy seed from the carrier 
to the mountain of waste outside bespoke the busy 
season on the plantation. He was always a trifle im- 
patient for the last lock of cotton to be picked from 
the rigid brown stalks, for then he was at liberty to 
have a lot of fellows up from the city to hunt the par- 
tridges that confidingly nested and reared their young 
with impunity under cover of the growing crops. As 
a general thing it was a trifle slow for him on the 
place, and he escaped from it as often as was practi- 
cable. It was oftenest practicable about the time of 
the fall races on the Metairie course, out beyond the 
shell-road in New Orleans, or when the crowds of 
summer idlers grew thickest, at the White Sulphur 
Springs, in Virginia. He was most partial to home in 
the spring-time, when the trout and the striped bass 
and the speckled sun-perch held full conventions 
under the dark waters of Bayou Pierre, doubtless 
devising measures of protection against their common 
enemy, man, or else foolishly betraying themselves by 



2 76 THE BOY AKD THE BAVOU. 

lofty tumblings that would carry them clear out of the 
water with a flash of rainbow tints, only to fall back 
with a softly-repentant splash. When the fish were 
" jumping," Gus was in his element. As an organizer 
of fish fries he was unsurpassed. Your native Bayou 
Pierrian could not easily be persuaded to eat his first 
trout or bass of the season in conventional stupidity 
or stupi-d conventionality, with his legs under his own 
or any body else's mahogany. It would take all the 
pleasure out of the sport and all the flavor out of the 
fish not to catch, cook and consume it without change 
of location. 

What other use did Bayou Pierre ever serve ? What 
else was it created for, with its cool, dark, slow-running 
current, its tree-shaded and vine-tangled banks, its 
fallen monarchs of the wood spanning its close-lying 
shores, making natural bridges, that were carpeted 
with the tenderest green mosses and made desirable 
points for pretty girls to stand on and pose with long 
fishing-rods in their hands and the desire for conquest 
in their hearts ? From the utilitarian point of view 
Bayou Pierre was quite as superfluous as Gus Wood- 
son. It was not needed for purposes of irrigation. It 
was not navigable even for the tiniest canoe, with its 
picturesque obstructions of mossy logs, whereon 
myriads of brown turtles sunned themselves on sunny 
days. It was in itself an impediment to travel, either 
having to be circumvented tediously and circuitously, 
or else crossed on untrustworthy bridges that swayed 
perilously beneath the foot of man or beast, and yet 
no one in all the country-side about Bayou Pierre 
would have dispensed with it, or with Gus Woodson 



THE BOY AND THE BAYOU. 271 

either. Each was to the Bayou Pierre folk what 
nothing or nobody else could possibly have been. 
" You knew exactly where to find them both." 

One would have as soon expected a false statement 
or a mean sentiment to drop from Gus Woodson's Hps 
as for the Bayou Pierre to yield up a draught of carp 
in the hand-net that had been dipped into its bosom 
for minnows or " needles." Both were suspected of 
latent and unsuspected reserves of power. Both 
moved placidly forward in the current determined for 
them by a higher power, until — well. 

The Bayou Pierre flowed sluggishly, sleepily, use- 
lessly on through the short gray November days, when 
the vines on its banks grew golden and scarlet and 
russet, and the rabbits rustled the dead branches of 
the blackberry bushes noisily as they stole down to 
the water's brink to slake their thirst ; on, sluggishly, 
sleepily, uselessly, through the bright spring-days, 
when the fish leaped with short-lived joy from its 
depths, and the painted corks bobbed and ducked and 
danced on its bosom, and the sound of merry voices 
waked the echoes on its banks ; on, sluggishly, sleepily, 
uselessly, through the long still summer days, when 
the elder bushes shed their lace-like petals in a creamy 
shower on its glassy breast, and the katydids droned 
drowsily in the tall trees that circled it round about, 
and the soft hum of myriad insects filled the air ; until 
— well — the river levees broke one day and the mad 
waters that had been foaming and tearing and raging 
at the feeble barrier for so long came leaping and 
bounding into the quiet little bayou and gave it some- 
thing to do. Then the Bayou Pierre asserted itself 



272 THE BOY AND THE BAYOU. 

in a fiercely rebellious fashion, and all the power 
that had lain dormant so long flashed into existence 
and carried it forever beyond the narrow banks, and 
beyond the quiet limitations of its peace-begirt 
days. 

In like fashion, Gus Woodson, in his peace-begirt 
days, moved placidly forward in the luxurious groove 
he found himself appointed to, sleepily, sluggishlv, 

uselessly, until — well . People smiled indulgently 

when they heard how Gus Woodson had gone to the 
war. He had gone forth at the first call, gayly, joy- 
ously, luxuriously, a led horse and a valet only a 
degree less splendid than himself in his new gray suit 
forming part of his outfit. The point of the valet had 
given rise to serious discussion in the home circle. 
Of course Gus went out as a cavalryman, and how- 
ever was he to get his horse curried unless he took 
Sandy along with him ? He had a general impression 
that military discipline was very rigid in the matter 
of well-cared-for beasts, and irreproachable carbines, 
and Sandy knew more about currying a horse and 
cleaning a carbine than he could ever hope to learn 
[in a lifetime. Plainly Sandy was a military neces- 
sity, as essential an article of his camp equipage as 
the musquito bar and the brass-mounted dressing-case, 
which were included in his list of indispensables, along 
with a miscellaneous collection of meerschaums. 
What a day that was at the big house when they were 
all helping to get him off ! It seemed to be an 
accepted theory that whatever he was lacking when he 
left the shelter of home, he must do without for the nat- 
ural term of his existence. And, you know, he had 



THE BOY AND THE BAYOU. 273 

never learned how to do without any thing. The excite- 
ment in the Vicar of Wakefield's house when Moses 
was about to make his perilous exploration of the 
outer world was as nothing to it. The old-fashioned 
saddle-bags that were swung behind Sandy's saddle 
swelled ever bigger and bigger with contributions of 
woolen comforters, little morocco *' house-wives" with 
his initials embroidered on the silk lining in hair ; 
tobacco bags of silk, lustrous with floss embroidery, 
socks and mittens galore. Gus Woodson, in his useless 
days, had contrived to accumulate many and ardent 
friendships. Very much seemed to be taken out of the 
neighborhood when he went. Every body liked him, 
" in spite of his nonsense." It was when rumors 
began to come back to them of his patient endurance 
of camp discipline, his readiness to discharge the most 
perilous duty, and his " dash" as a cavalryman, that 
public opinion began to veer, and the most contracted 
utilitarian on Bayou Pierre admitted that in the econ- 
omy of the ages even the Gus Woodsons of this world 
may find a place. There were detractors who said, 
" That was about all he was fit for," and that " to 
career over the country with a carbine on his shoulder, 
and his legs astride a good piece of horseflesh, was 
just in Gus Woodson's line." Nevertheless, local 
pride in him went up and steadily up ; and then peo- 
ple began to pity him for what he would have to come 
back to. For, whichever way things went, Gus Wood- 
son's home-coming must be a very sad one. The 
crisis was very imminent when Bayou Pierre began to 
admit the possibility implied in the expression " which- 
ever way things went." 



^74 THE BOY AND THE BAVOU, 

Things had gone* badly enough at the Woodsons' 
ever since Gus had been in the army. The old man 
seemed to lose his grip after the boys went away. 
There didn't seem to be much left for the old people 
to live for. The plantation was too far away. The 
time came when it was hard to get a word from the 
seat of war. Perhaps if they moved into town, they 
might hear from the boys oftener. They were no use 
on the place. Things had all gone to the dogs. Maybe 
if they were nearer the river, they might the easier 
catch those floating rumors, which were all the alim.ent 
afforded so many hungry and aching hearts. The 
plantation was no longer like home. " Any thing 
might happen to them there." 

So the big house was deserted and the old 
folks moved into town for the sake of that com- 
pany which it is said misery loves. And when 
the neighbors they had left behind in the planta- 
tion houses about Bayou Pierre saw their household 
effects being carried off bodily — caravans of mules 
laden down with the fleecy blankets and the 
snowy table damask and the rich brocatelle curtains 
that had made Mrs. Woodson's parlor the envy of her 
less fortunate neighbors ; dumping carts groaning 
under piles of carpets and rich rugs, and bristling 
with chair legs and sofa legs ; costly plate-glass mir- 
rors flashing the sun rays into blinking eyes as their 
grinning appropriators passed defiantly by trundling 
them along the dusty road on wheelbarrows, in close 
proximity to the vases from the parlor mantels and 
the waffle-irons from the kitchen dresser — they called 
the Woodsons " fools," and, looking on in impotent 



The boy and the bayoV, 275 

rage, resolved to cling to their own possessions with a 
deathless grip. 

One night the sky grew lurid and the sound 
of fiercely-crackling, blazing timbers arrested every 
ear within reach of it. It was the Woodson 
house in flames. People said the freedmen, rioting 
in a lawless sense of liberty, which first pre- 
sented itself in the guise of license, had set fire to it 
in the vain hope of finding the family silver, which 
must be hidden away somewhere in some of its many 
nooks and crannies. It existed in great quantities, 
and the old folks had not taken it away, so there it 
must be. 

Those were lawless days. Might made right. 
The might lay in the Woodson quarters just then. 
The neighbors looked on at the burning in apa- 
thetic dismay ; there was nothing to do or to say 
excepting to repeat that "old man Woodson had turned 
fool." Vulturine hordes hovered industriously about 
the heaps of ashes, which were all that was left of 
the handsome house on the Woodson place, raking, 
sweeping, sifting, poking, excavating for the melted 
mass of silver and gold that must lie somewhere in 
the ruins. Every man, woman and child that could 
find standing-room in the ashy arena was there, except- 
ing old Merrick, the Woodson carriage-driver, who 
had nothing to do in those chaotic days. 

He stood aloof with his withered hands folded over 
the handle of the long carriage-whip that he carried 
about with him mechanically, and fixed his glittering 
eyes on the eager silver-hunters with contemptuous 
scorn. Every now and then his tight-shut lips would 



276 THE BOY AND THE BAVOtl. 

open sufficiently to emit a chuckle that had almost a 
ring of triumph in it ; then they would close again 
viciously over the words " Car'an crows," which 
always preceded his sudden departure from the scene 
of activity. 

People began to say that old Merrick was going 
crazy. He was seen so often prowling around a cer- 
tain spot in the Woodson wild lands, just outside the 
plantation fence, with no earthly object in view, 
apparently. He was always muttering to himself. The 
keenest ear could not catch the words he muttered. 
He gave them a sort of rhythm that produced the 
effect of an incantation. 

It was not until his course was fully run, and old 
Merrick, long after the war, was laid to rest under the 
black-thorn tree in the family burying-ground, that 
that muttered incantation became matter of history. 
What he said was meaningless by itself : " Two pan'l 
souf — turn t'odes syc'mo', two rails east — turn t'odes 
sweet gum — stop dar ; " but through all his waking 
hours, making sure no ear was near enough to catch 
his incantation, old Merrick said the mystic words 
over and over to himself, sometimes adding, as an 
explanatory supplement : " Mout forgit, you know, 
den w'ite folks wouldn' trus' ol' Merrick no 
mo.' " 

Ashes ! That was what Gus Woodson came home 
to. The world seemed turned to ashes. The old 
homestead — ashes. The cause he had fought for — 
ashes. All the high bounding hopes of his early man- 
hood — ashes. Even poor Sandy and the led horse 
had succumbed and were — ashes. He and Burgundy 



THE BOY AND THE BAYOU. 277 

alone came back up the long drive between the live- 
oak trees that looked so absurdly pointless now, lead- 
ing up to nothing but a huge grass-grown shapeless 
heap, where the blackberry bushes had already taken 
root and had flung their sprays of white flowers ten- 
derly about the ruins of a home. Only a little while 
he and Burgundy stood there motionless with down- 
dropped heads. Burgundy was tired. He was four 
years older than when he had last pranced down that 
long vista between the live-oak trees with the buoyant 
young cavalryman on his back. His rider was not 
tired, only sick — sick at heart and weary of life while 
he stood there indulging himself in this brief mute 
halt over the grave of his hopes. He, too, was four 
years older than when last he passed under the green 
canopy of the over-arching live-oaks that led from the 
house to the white gate at the end of the lawn, and 
centuries graver. There was none of the consterna- 
tion of surprise in his steady downward gaze upon the 
grassy heap at his feet. It was an old story. There 
were thousands of just such shapeless, grass-grown, 
pathetic ruins all over the land he loved. He would 
build the big house again some of these days, and 
bring the old folks back from exile. But there was 
no place for them yet. He and Burgundy must rough 
it together for a little while longer. He raised his 
head to see what was left. 

There was the two-room cabin back of the kitchen. 
Poor Sandy used to live in one of them. It was vacant 
now. There was more than room enough left for all 
his earthly possessions. He would have a shed 
knocked up against the gable end for Burgundy. 



278 THE BOY AND THE BAYOU. 

Perhaps Burgundy would have to be put in the plow 
now ; wasn't his own hand already upon it so firmly 
that there was to be no looking back ? There was no 
looking back. 

Old Merrick came to him the first night he spent in 
his new home, in the cabin that had been Sandy's, and 
stood before him with a pickax and a spade : "I'se 
ready, son, if you i-s," was all he said, and the two 
went out together into the dark night, trudging through 
brier patches along the outer line of the tumble-down 
fence, until old Merrick called a halt. Gus Woodson 
was going for his own, but those were disorganized 
times. There were new and untried people in the old 
cabins. To-morrow he would start with his big box 
that held the family silver and the mother's diamonds 
for New Orleans, to convert them into the green- 
backs that still held the charm of novelty for him. 
Old Merrick alone knew the secret of the hiding-place. 
It was he who had lashed his foaming horses back up 
the carriage-drive after depositing the old folks in 
exile, and gathered all the valuables into the big box 
he had first planted empty in the grave prepared for 
it; then, laboring to and fro through the long dark 
night, he had not rested until the box-lid was securely 
screwed down over the silver and jewelry and the 
broken ground was sodded over and strewn with un- 
der-brush, "sorter keerless lak son." With what pride 
he told his story over to Gus as together they labored 
to bring the box to the surface by aid of its strong 
leather straps ! And what a proud glitter came into his 
dim eyes as the young man held out his strong sun- 
burned hand to clasp the withered horny one of the 



THE BOY AND THE BAYOU. 279 

faithful f reedman who had made such royal use of his 
new-found privilege of independent action ! 

That was how Gus Woodson got his fresh start in 
life. There were detractors who laughed to scorn the 
idea of a boy " raised as Gus Woodson had been " 
supposing he could grapple with the problem of free 
labor in its infancy and "make it pay." They predicted 
that he would soon follow the example of his older 
brothers, who, rather than take the hateful oath of 
allegiance, had started for Honduras immediately on 
receiving their paroles. There were those who gave 
him three months in which to tire of eating off tin plates 
on a deal table with notable-cloth on it, and of making 
his own fire in the morning. '^ There never had been 
a Woodson yet who loved work, and there never would 
be." No, not that he loved work, but that he was 
newly enamored of independence, newly resolved not 
to be on the side of the defeated always. 

It was up-hill work. He knew beforehand it would 
be. The tools with which he was going to rebuild his 
shattered fortunes were blunt and clumsy. The ABC 
of the freedman's education was distrust of his former 
owner. He called a convention of his constituents on 
the day when the contract was to be signed for making 
the first crop on the Woodson place since the war. He 
had chosen evening so that none of the new people 
should have an excuse for not hearing its conditions. 
The light from a single kerosene lamp fell on the long 
sheet of legal cap that had been carefully drawn up 
under the supervision of a lawyer for the mutual pro- 
tection of lessee and lessor. It was a new way of 
dealing with "black folks," but old things had passed 



28o THE BOY AND THE BAYOU. 

away forever. The little sitting-room in the cabin was 
crowded to repletion with towering forms in rags a»d 
tatters, whose owners looked distrustfully down on the 
young but serious white face revealed to them by the 
meager light of the kerosene lamp. It was a solemn 
occasion. The written contract looked imposing. Not 
one of them could read. How were they to know what 
they were binding themselves to ? They had the 
general understanding that they were going to " crap 
on sheers," but it didn't need all that paper and ink 
to tell them that. They were all there, stalwart 
men with the vacant faces of infancy ; slatternly 
women making up in noisy demonstration what they 
lacked of feeling at ease ; open-mouthed boys, with a 
certain alertness that came of only a limited experience 
of slavery ; open-eyed girls who were passing through 
life in a state of bovine placidity. 

Gus read his document slowly and impressively and 
conscientiously, never skipping one " party of the first 
part," nor slurring over a single " party of the second 
part." It was confusing. It was bewildering. It was 
incomprehensible. A dead silence followed the reading. 
He dipped his pen tentatively into the inkstand at his 
elbow, and extended it toward the oldest-looking man 
present. They were all strangers to him. Besides old 
Merrick, who stood behind his chair, an idle but 
interested spectator of a drama in which he had no 
role to play, these were new people, people who had 
taken possession of his cabins because the " land lay" 
to suit them and they had to work somewhere. No 
one offered to touch the pen. How did they know 
what electric current of diabolism might pass from the 



THE BOY AND THE BA YOU. 281 

tip of the finger which they were requested to place 
on the end of the pen-handle while the landowner made 
their mark for them with the nib of the pen, and con- 
sign them to the powers of darkness, soul and body ? 
They had taken the first step toward wisdom, they 
"did n' trus' nobody." A single voice near the outer 
edge of the crowd finally broke the spell of inaction : 

" Read dat 'bout de sheers 'gin, ef you please, boss." 

Gus patiently found the place wherein it was set 
forth, with much legal verbosity, that the parties of 
the second part were to have one-third of all the cotton 
and the corn raised by them on the land belonging to 
the party of the first part ; and read it again slowly 
and distinctly, then held his finger on the place while 
he sent his patient eyes in search of the seeker after 
light. 

" Dat '11 do, boss, 'bleege t' you, dat's 'nough fur dis 
nigger. Any nigger dat's fool 'nough t* work fur one- 
fird de crap w'en he kin git one-fofe by jus' steppin' t' 
odder side Bayer Peere 'serves t' starve t' deff. Dem 
dat wants to cawntrac' wid you is got my permit t' do 
so. Dis nigger's gwine whar he kin git his full jues." 

In vain Gus endeavored to make him understand 
the superiority of his own proffered one-third over his 
neighbor's one-fourth. His fractions only drove them 
mad. His interlocutor stooped to recover the ragged 
felt hat he had dropped on the floor in the excitement 
of protest, and slapping it against his knee by way of 
restoring its pristine luster, put it on at a defiant angle 
and turned from the audience chamber. He wasn't 
going to be " juggled " out of his freedom of action 
by a volume of words that conveyed no idea to his 



252 THE BOY AND THE BAYOU. 

densely befogged brain, and that white man didn't live 
that could make him say three was bigger than four. 
His lead was followed by the crowd. If Jack Dabney 
saw cause for dissatisfaction, it must exist, for Jack 
was the acknowledged possessor of a '' mouty levil 
headpiece " ; and Gus's cabins were all empty again 
the next day. 

Ah, yes, it was up-hill work ! There was ignorance 
to combat, and helplessness to condone, and ineffi- 
ciency to be borne with ; there were the sly, cruel 
machinations of the office-seeking carpet-bagger to be 
met with patience and dignity ; there were countless 
intrusive ghosts from out the dead past to be remanded 
determinedly to the realm of oblivion ; there was the 
bitter consciousness that a cloud of witnesses were 
ready and alert to catch his slightest breath, his faintest 
whisper, even his irrepressible sighs for the past that 
had been so sweet and full, to fan them with the breath 
of malice into the quick consuming fires of sectional 
animosity. 

But as the days of toil were- succeeded by the long 
evenings of rest in the little cabin that had once been 
Sandy's, and he smoked his brier-wood pipe on the 
gallery, in the dark, with old Merrick crouching on the 
steps below him, maundering endlessly on about the 
old times that would never come again, his past 
resolved itself into a slowly moving panorama, and he 
saw it all for the first time from the outside. 

It is not often that his gaze is cast backward. 
It is thrown ever forward toward that bright beacon- 
light of hope which only young eyes can see. He is 
laying the foundations of the old house again. Not 



THE BOY AND THE BAYOU, 283 

as they were. Nothing can ever be with him quite as 
it was. Only broader and deeper and surer, with 
higher springing arches and breezier outlook and a 
general betterment. And, as with the foundations of 
the old home, so with himself. Like some long hiber- 
nating animal, he has sloughed the garments of sloth 
and bestirred him to a new life of activity and endeavor. 
He is laying the foundations of his new life broader 
and deeper and surer, with higher springing aims and 
breezier outlooks. Who will not waft him a fraternal 
God-speed ? 



CHAPTER XXI. 



A BONE OF CONTENTION. 



IT is only once on record that all the ladies of the 
Blue Lick neighborhood were ever in perfect 
accord on any question, and that was before the build- 
ing of the " Brick Church." 

Strangers approaching Blue Lick from the east come 
unexpectedly upon a little Gothic affair sitting back 
from the road and clinging to a low wooded hill. Its 
red-brick surface ^' composes " well with the various 
shades of green that form a background to it in sum- 
mer. Honeysuckles and bright coral cypress vines 
run riot over its exterior, swaying their perfumed cen- 
sers through the open windows on the rare occasions 
of divine service, without aid of acolyte or direction of 
priest. As a feature of the landscape, the Brick Church 
has much to commend it. Architecturally, also, it is 
a decided success, though, perhaps, its spire is open 
to censure on the score of over-ornamentation, and 
suggests the harsh criticism that its architect might 
have started life as a confectioner's apprentice. It 
springs boldly heavenward at first, but, apparently 
impressed with the utter futility of trying to overtop 
the stately young pines that stand proudly erect all 
round about the little Brick Church, terminates abruptly 



A BONE OF CONTENTION. 285 

and looks not unlike a badly sharpened lead-pencil 
with a gall nut stuck on its point. 

The pines rain their shining needles softly down to 
hide the barrenness of the ground it stands on. An 
acre of land has been inclosed in several successive 
rail fences and called by courtesy the church-yard. 
Rail fences are not permanent institutions in the 
neighborhood of Blue Lick, and the man who supplies 
the material for the church fences rejoices in the pos- 
session of a perennial job. 

This inclosure was originally intended for a grave- 
yard. The Blue Lick people used to express them- 
selves regretfully at having no consecrated ground in 
which to bury their dead. But no spade has ever yet 
penetrated the brown carpet of the pine needles to 
break ground for a grave, and the probabilities are 
that no Hamlet of even a remote future will ever glean 
therein material for a homily. People still lay their 
loved and lost away under their own vines and rose- 
bushes, in nooks in their own flower-tangled gardens, 
where no controversial disputes can possibly disturb 
their slumbers, and where the difficulty of persuading 
a Presbyterian rose to shed its sweetness over a Metho- 
dist plot may not be encountered ; nor need any 
immersionistbe shocked by the presence of a meagerly 
sprinkled sleeper in Baptist possessions. 

A stile crosses the worm fence in front of the church 
door, up to which it leads by way of a grass-grown 
walk. The stile is a permanent institution, but not 
unfrequently it stands alone, an inconsequent-looking 
thing, supporting the fiction of an inclosure without 
the indorsement of a single panel of fencing. When 



286 A BOJVE of contention 

things reach this pass, the people of Bkie Lick say : 
" It is a shame. Somebody ought to wake the trustees 
up." So somebody does wake the trustees up, and a 
new fence is ordered. Some of these days they expect 
to have a settled minister, and then the weeds along 
the grass-grown walk will not flaunt it quite so inso- 
lently, and vagrant cows will not be at liberty to take 
their afternoon siestas on its shady side, and the gall 
nut on the apex of the spire will vibrate to the ringing 
of a big bell, and a millennial dawn will whiten the 
theological horizon of Blue Lick, and the little church 
will lose its lonely look. 

Whether it will prove to be an Episcopal millennium, 
or a Baptist, or a Presbyterian one, who shall dare say. 
At present, while it is conceded that architecturally 
and aesthetically the Brick Church is satisfying, the 
question of its efficacy as an evangelizing agency is 
still an open one. Nevertheless, it is something to 
remember that once upon a time the ladies all acted 
in unison, and were agreed upon one point : Blue 
Lick must have a church. 

It was Miss Margery Banks who first set this idea 
actively afloat. She was a very popular woman before 
that spasm of church-building energy seized upon her. 
She has not fingers enough on both hands, taking in 
thumbs and all, to count her enemies now. The Blue 
Lick boys call Miss Margery "a late bloomer," because, 
after leading the most secluded and innocuous girl- 
hood, she suddenly effloresced into a determined and 
merciless woman with a mission, and that mission 
the building of a church for Blue Lick. 

She planted the seed of this idea with brisk energy 



A BONE OF CONTENTION. 287 

in all sorts of soil. She careered wildly all over the 
country on her little sorrel mare. No vicissitudes of 
wind or weather damped her ardor. Men declared 
that it would be vain to flee^even unto the mountains 
of Hepzidam to escape pursuit. It was fatal to 
encounter her on the road, at the store, or even in the 
sacred precincts of one's own home. She was sure to 
pelt you with one of four words, perhaps with all four 
at once. Subscription, donation, tableau, fair. 

These were the four keys that were to open the 
gates of the spiritual world to benighted Blue Lick, 
and Miss Margery was going to fit them all with 
locks. The zeal of God's house bade fair to eat her 
up. That she should have sowed her seed, some on 
rocky, some on sandy, some on good soil was but to 
follow in the wake of every sower. 

None of the men ventured to contradict her 
flatly when she declared that Blue Lick ought to have 
a church. Some said, " Of course it ought." Others 
said " They supposed so," and others, again, indulged 
in a tentative '' Why." 

Blue Lick wasn't much of a place, but it was 
the county seat, and it was the nucleus of a very 
wealthy agricultural district, and "it really was just 
little short of scandalous," the way they kept or didn't 
keep Sunday. Miss Margery's plea was always for 
the young people who were growing up, tacitly giving 
over the elders and her own contemporaries to the 
powers of darkness. She wanted the children that 
were " coming on " to have the benefit of a church. 
She began where every wise revolutionist begins, with 
the women. 



288 A BONE OF COJVTEiVTIOiV. 

There were the Spencers. The Spencers owned 
three plantations, a town-house in New Orleans, and 
a cottage for summer use at the Sweet Sulphur Springs 
in Virginia. People with three different homes really 
hadn't time to form local attachments, but Mrs. 
Spencer had growing sons, and Miss Margery 
approached her with the fearlessness born of confidence 
in herself and her cause. Mrs. Spencer agreed with 
her quickly. A church was a very desirable invest- 
ment. It kept the young men from loafing on the 
store galleries, and really the Sundays were desperately 
stupid. One couldn't read and write letters all day 
long. A church would be an excellent reminder of 
the respect due the one day out of seven, especially 
if it (the church, not the day) had a bell. Of course 
she would do all she could to help on the good 
work. 

There was the doctor's wife, who had been startled 
recently into a contemplative frame of mind on this 
very subject by having her eight-year-old boy mistake 
the picture of a church spire for a pigeon-house. The 
poor little heathen had never been inside a sacred 
edifice. The doctor's wife was one of those naturally 
devout creatures who would have tried to inoculate 
her boy with the Thirty-Nine Articles even if she had 
been turned adrift with him in scorching deserts, as 
was Hagar of old, handsomely equipped with a bottle 
of water and a loaf of bread. Miss Margery had no 
difficulty whatever in enlisting her sympathies, and in 
view of the receptive frame of mind she found her in 
she hurled all four of her keys at the doctor's ^vife, 
leaving her pledged to a donation, a subscription, a 



A BONE OF CONTENTION. 289 

part in the tableau of " Blue-beard's Wives," and the 
furnishing of a fancy-table for the church fair. 

Then there were the Carol girls. She found them 
a trifle mutinous at first. The Carol girls were 
advanced thinkers. They had been educated at the 
North, and considered themselves well in the van of 
all thought. The Blue Lick neighborhood did not 
give them a very satifactory area for the display of 
the profundities, but it was their life-long home. 
They loved the old plantation home, and they had 
evolved a plan that had worked admirably so far for 
distinguishing Sunday from the other six days, and 
they doubted whether Miss Margery's contemplated 
innovation would result in improving the manners or 
the morals of the neighborhood. All the Carol 
instincts were conservative and aristocratic. A neigh- 
borhood church must of necessity be awfully demo- 
cratic. 

They listened to Miss Margery's glowing ar- 
guments with cool politeness. They preferred " the 
existing mode of divine worship." " The existing 
mode of divine worship " consisted of delightful little 
reunions in somebody's parlor every Sunday for the 
purpose of singing. The Carol girls would have pre- 
ferred high-class oratorios and that sort of thing, but 
Moody and Sankey and the Bliss collection were 
better adapted to the vocal capacities of the neigh- 
borhood, and therefore received the preference, and 
were sung vigorously every Sunday morning to some- 
body's piano accompaniment. 

The intervals between hymns were devoted to inter- 
change of neighborhood items. Ill-natured gossip 



290 A BONE OF CONTENTION. 

was, of course, tacitly forbidden on these semi-sacred 
occasions, and if the men showed a tendency toward 
absorption in crop discussions, all that was necessary 
was to give out a fresh tune and start the piano. Every 
body was sure of being invited to go home to dinner 
by every body else. Altogether, Sunday was the most 
delightful day in the week. The Spencer boys had 
splendid voices and they rarely missed " Sankeying," 
as it was locally termed. 

Miss Margery Banks was a born diplomat. She 
knew the Sankey Sundays were a great institu- 
tion ; no one had enjoyed them more than she, real 
intellectual treats ; but she was thinking of the young 
people coming on. They might not all be vocally 
inclined. She had taken it for granted that the Spen- 
cer boys and the Carol girls would compose the choir 
of the church when it was built ; there was no one 
else who could possibly fill the position at all. But it 
was scarcely worth while going on with the project if 
she had to leave the Carol girls out of her Beauty of 
the Harem, Cleopatra and Mark Antony, and Sleeping 
Beauty tableaux. 

The Carol girls were not left out. They supposed 
Blue Lick ought to have a church. Yes, they would 
help with the tableaux. 

There was the Judge's widow, whose boys declared 
they couldn't see the difference between their going 
out with their fishing-rods on Sunday and her sitting 
at home reading Shakespeare, or Washington Irving, or 
any thing that wasn't a sermon. And how could she 
show them any difference when there wasn't any 
church to go to ? Of course, they must have a church. 



A BONE OF CONTENTION. 29! 

Not that the people of Blue Lick were in any one par- 
ticular more unregenerate than the most conservative 
descendant of the Pilgrim Fathers. They were simply, 
as Drummond would put it, " in correspondence with 
their environment," and Miss Margery's laudable de- 
sire was to make some improvement in the environ- 
ment. 

The women all enlisted, she turned her batteries 
on the men. They were almost bomb-proof. It 
was a spiritual palsy rather than active antagonism 
she had to combat. The people about Blue Lick 
were the victims of circumstances. Circumstances 
had placed miles of rough country roads between the 
different dwellings. Each plantation was a little prin- 
cipality in itself. And the dwellers thereon were of 
necessity so absolutely independent of their nearest 
neighbors in all that pertained to their welfare in this 
world that it was small wonder they were slow to per- 
ceive the necessity for co-operation touching the 
things that pertained to another world. 

Such isolated lives foster strong individuality. The 
men scattered about on the big plantations about 
Blue Lick formed their own opinions about things 
material and spiritual, assisted or hindered, as 
the case might be, by such theorists as Darwin, 
Spencer, Huxley, et ah. They thought out their 
political status with no narrow bias engendered 
by the '' leaders " of a local newspaper. Blue 
Lick had no local newspaper. When business or 
social instincts brought them together, the staple 
topics of conversation were the crops or the state of 
the Liverpool market. They would have regarded 



292 A BONE OF COlVTENTIOr^, 

any discussion touching the future prospects of their 
own or their neighbors' souls as a '' piece of deuced 
sanctimoniousness," and would have voted the fellow 
who raised the question a " muff." They held that 
there was a time and place for every thing ; but as to 
the correct time and place for polemical discussions 
they were a trifle befogged. 

They received Miss Margery's first shot variously. 
What was the matter with Blue Lick ? Didn't they 
(its citizens) pay their debts and keep their word like 
gentlemen ? Did they need a preacher to tell them 
they mustn't lie or cheat ? What if they did rally on 
the store galleries for an hour's idle chat of Sundays ? 
It was a sort of harmless exchange. It preserved 
public spirit alive. It obviated the necessity for a 
paper. Notwithstanding all which, *' the late bloomer " 
smiled invincibly, and threw her tendrils (so to speak) 
about them all, men, women, and children, converting 
the cold into lukewarm, and the lukewarm into warm, 
and the warm into fervid, until the whole neighbor- 
hood was resolved into committees for this, that, and 
the other thing, and the sluggish tenor of its way was 
diverted into a swift-rushing torrent of energy, all 
tending towards one goal — the Blue Lick Church. 

Dutton, who keeps the biggest store in Blue Lick, 
and who can see the Brick Church from his store gal- 
lery, says that the church had a " long sight better 
drawing capacity while it was going up than it has 
ever had since." Yes, every body watched it going 
up after the plans were finally decided on. Mrs. 
Spencer would drive in in her carriage to see how 
it was getting on. The different men, who had 



A BONE OF CONTENTION. 293 

after all given liberally of their substance under the 
force of public pressure, felt a proprietary interest 
in fit. All the idlers about town found it an agree- 
able variation from whittling Button's gallery chairs 
to watch the joists and rafters of the new church 
put into place. The boys reveled in the delightful 
excitement of getting into every body's way, and the 
Doctor's wife anxiously watched the progress of the 
building that was to remove the stigma of profound 
ignorance from her benighted child, wnile Miss Mar- 
gery beamed patronizingly on them all, from the rich 
man who had given the ground down to the poor one 
who mixed the lime and sand into a loblolly, with an 
admiring fringe of villagers standing close around the 
edge of his mortar-box. 

And so the Blue Lick Church was built. It could 
not very well help being built, you know, seeing the 
entire community had a hand in it. Then the trustees 
were appointed — three men of unexceptionable rec- 
ords — men of worth and probity. Miss Margery said 
privately it was a pity they couldn't have " professors " 
for trustees, but she " supposed they would have to 
wait for some of the young ones that were coming on." 

No, the trustees were not professors. But they 
were honest beyond question and they were the best to 
be procured under the circumstances. And the church 
had a bell. You don't see it under the knobby spire, 
because it never got any further than Button's store. 
Mrs. Spencer carpeted it — the building — out and 
out. The Carol girls gave a reed organ, and there 
wasn't a thing lacking to the little red church on the 
green hill-side excepting a preacher. 



2 94 A BONE OF CONTENTION. 

Of course, the getting of a preacher devolved on 
the trustees, the best men in the world, but absolutely 
devoid of any *' leanings." There was Major Spencer, 
one of the most high-toned gentlemen in the world — 
a moral man, too, who always timed his visits to New 
Orleans when the Metairie course was in full blast. 
There was the Doctor, in whose eyes the preservation 
of people's bodies was of such stupendous moment 
that he really never had found time to formulate a 
creed for himself or adopt a ready-made one. And 
Button. The selection of Button, the biggest store- 
keeper in Blue Lick, for the third trustee was regarded 
by Button himself as the best joke of the season, but 
the ladies who had the selection of the trustees meant 
it as a concession to the democratic element that had 
put its shoulder to the wheel when they were building 
the church. They supposed they really ought not to 
be exclusive in church matters. 

When it was impressed upon the three trustees that 
the church was waiting for a preacher, each one of 
them did what every wise man does in the hour of his 
perplexity, went home and consulted his wife. 

" What denomination must he be ? " Mrs. Spencer 
echoed, making exclamation points of her arched, 
eyebrows at the Major's absurd question. " Now* 
Major Spencer, you don't suppose I would help to 
build any church in the world but a Presbyterian 
church. Why, I've been in correspondence with 
young Jeffreys, you know, he's in attendance on 
General Assembly, ever since the first brick was laid 
in that church. All you have to do is to invite him 
here on a visit, and when the time comes he will 



A BONE OF CONTENTION. 295 

occupy that pulpit. * What will the Episcopalians who 
put their money in do?' That question I can't 
answer. But that is a Presbyterian church, Major 
Spencer, and I hope you will do your duty as a 
trustee without flinching." 

The Major did flinch, but he also invited Mr. Jeff- 
reys to come to Blue Lick on a visit. 

The Doctor's wife was in a state of feverish over- 
readiness. The Bishop had written her word that in 
his diocesan rounds he would take in Blue Lick very 
shortly. He commended the energy displayed by the 
'■'■ faithful daughters of his diocese," and promised to 
bring with him a most excellent young man who had 
been acting as his chaplain, but whom he especially de- 
sired to see located in a neighborhood whose wealth 
and refinement would be a guarantee of appreciation. 
The Doctor's wife was quite used to shouldering the 
Doctor's responsibilities apart from his drugs and pill- 
boxes, and was justifiably elated to think how 
smoothly she was steering matters without the 
slightest friction for that '' dear, good, busy man.'» 

" But suppose the Methodists and Presbyterians 
don't want the Bishop and his chaplain ? " the trustee's 
conscience pricked him into asking. 

" Don't want the Bishop ! Why, Dr. Marvin, don't 
you know that it is an Episcopal church ? Do you 
suppose I would ever have done a hand's turn toward 
building any but an Episcopal church ? Now, don't 
worry. All you've got to do is to notify the other 
trustees of the date of the diocesan visit. The 
Bishop will do the rest when he gets here." 

The Doctor was new to the duties of trusteeship. 



296 A BONE OF CONTENTION, 

He was more than willing to leave this complex 
matter in the hands of his wife and the Bishop, with 
whom he had been in active correspondence for 
weeks. So he went back to his patients with a sense 
of relief and forgot all about notifying his confreres 
of the Bishop's diocesan visit. 

The Button faction was for arranging matters on 
the majority plan. The '' folks " that lived on the 
plantations and shipped their cotton by the hundred 
bales were not the ones who had to stick to one spot 
all the year round. It was Button's wife and Mrs. 
Rogers that " took the lawyers in" (in more senses 
than one) during court term, and the Sheriff's wife 
and the Recorder's family, and that set, who would 
fill the pews in the Brick Church when the Spencers 
and the Carols and that set were away in '' the city." 
And for every-day wear give them a good strong 
shouting Methodist — a man that would stir the blood 
in your veins and make you feel, every time he got 
up to preach a sermon, that all the bother they'd had 
about building that church didn't count for nothing. 
Mrs. Button knew the very man. And he was her 
own mother's cousin. Had been " on the circuit " for 
twenty years. She was expecting him every day to 
visit mother. He generally did come when the 
broilers were of a good size, and he'd be on hand 
when he was wanted. 

Yes, he was on hand when he was wanted. So was 
Mr. Jeffreys, the young man who had been in attend- 
ance on General Assembly, but they reached Blue 
Lick an hour or two after the Bishop. The Bishop 
talked as one having authority. His presence was 



A BONE OF CONTENTION. 297 

majestic, his robes were imposing. Besides he was 
two to one. He was re-enforced by a chaplain. On 
the day that he consecrated the new church Mrs. 
Spencer's young minister preached in the Court-house, 
and the benches in front of him were occupied by all 
the good Presbyterians in town, while Mrs. Button's 
mother's cousin held forth to a goodly constituency in 
the warehouse behind Button's store, that had been 
hastily swept and garnished for the purpose. 

The Bishop left the chaplain behind him, but it did 
not take long for him to find out that the Episco- 
palian contingency was too small to support a minister 
alone, on making which discovery he shook the dust 
of Blue Lick from his highly polished shoes and 
followed the Bishop. 

His successors, respectively a Presbyterian and a 
Methodist, were not long in coming to the same con- 
clusion. It is one of these snarls that time does little 
towards straightening out, and that is the reason why 
the grass grows over the walk in front of the little 
Brick Church, and the cows take their afternoon 
siestas on its shady side, and the bell does not ring in 
a harmonious flock of worshipers to sit at the feet of 
an established minister. 



CHAPTER XXII. 



OLD HARVEY. 



HE is " old Harvey " now to all the men and boys 
of his locality, ^' irrespective of age, color, or 
previous condition." Some of the colored people who 
were young slaves when he was sheriff of the county 
before the war, and upon whose minds the awe-inspir- 
ing dignity of that office made such an indelible 
impression that no one who has once held it can ever 
again be quite liice other folks, still doff their hats 
deferentially to '* Boss Harvey," while the women of 
the county invariably speak of him as " poor old Mr. 
Harvey " ; but this last is prolix and manifestly 
inconvenient for colloquial purposes, so that when 
strangers, taking immediate note of one of the most 
striking objects in the town, make inquiry concerning it, 
they are informed concisely that, ''that's old Harvey." 
But as every body likes him — the older people because 
they remember what he was and what he has been to 
the neighborhood, and the younger people becausethey 
have been reared with a sort of traditional regard for 
old Harvey — the term comes from the most careless 
lips divested of all harshness or contempt, with rather 
a caressing sound, in point of fact. 

He antedates almost all the institutions of the town, 



"OLD HARVEY." 299 

for many of which he is largely responsible. He 
antedates that exceedingly irrelevant-looking new 
cupola on the old Court-house, which so painfully 
suggests a shabbily-dressed woman tricked out in a 
smart new bonnet that only emphasizes her dinginess. 
He antedates all the trees in the Court-house Square. 
Those trees, principally broad-branching live-oaks 
andconically aspiring cottonwoods, which acommodate 
each other kindly, are majestic in size now, and 
liberal in the rnatter of shade for teams and the 
buggies and the riding-horses and the ox-wagons that 
accumulate in Court-house Square on the '' packet 
day," but old Harvey remembers when they were all 
feeble, struggling saplings, watched over by his official 
eye. 

He selected them every one himself, riding over 
the woods, back of town, day after day, to consider 
the respective merits of the different sorts of 
shade-trees, and then going with the men he had 
employed for the more arduous undertaking of trans- 
planting them. And when they actually began to grow, 
in spite of manifold prophecies to the contrary, and to 
checker the hoof-beaten ground of the square, with a 
network of small leaf-shadows, and spread a soft green 
veil before the weather-beaten face of the old Court- 
house, the sheriff thriftly built boxes promptly all 
about them to protect them against equine voracity, 
and notched the tops of the boxes ornamentally and 
had them all whitewashed. All of which gave the 
square such an exceedingly smart look that some of 
the citizens advocated a public vote of thanks to Mr. 
Harvey, their " efficient and public-spirited sheriff," 



300 "OLD HARVEVr 

He antedates the only church in the place, that pretty 
little Gothic concern that was secured to the town in 
such a tumultuous fashion, mainly through the efforts 
of the young women who doted on church-fairs and 
raffles. In fact, he remembers when there was nothing 
to the town but Davenport's store and the tavern 
where most of the lawyers " put up " when court is in 
session, the blacksmith's shop under the walnut trees 
above Davenport's, and the court-house itself. 

The keenest regret of old Harvey's life is, that when 
the war broke out he in his official capacity ordered 
the removal of the county records to a place of 
safety. In consequence of this removal, they were 
lost entirely, and with his tender conscience he is 
always fancying that this one or that one of his old 
constituents has suffered irreparable loss through his 
mistaken zeal. But he had only meant to guard 
against the possibility of their falling into the hands 
of the Marine Brigade. 

The Marine Brigade was a fleet of eight or nine 
vessels that infested the Mississippi River during the 
war in a sort of maritime guerrilla capacity. The sol- 
diers of the brigade wore the uniform of the Federal 
Army, and the flag of the loyal floated from the mast- 
head of each of the eight boats. It was a power in its 
day. It was about the time when the Marine Brigade 
developed such an abnormal conscience in the interests 
of Uncle Sam as to carry off all Mrs. Judge Baker's 
silver in a sheet, that Mr. Harvey thought the county 
records might next fall victims to this unique rapacity, 
so had them removed. 

Havinof been the innocent cause of such an 



''OLD HAKVEVr 3°I 

irreparable loss to the community, old Harvey has 
held himself ever since in conscience bound to 
make it good in every possible way, and the community 
can furnish no greater tribute of its confidence in his 
probity than its willingness to substitute his memory 
for the written records wherever practicable. People 
say that it was only after the loss of the county records 
that old Harvey began to show his age at all. He 
has not reached such an age yet that they are afraid 
to trust to his memory, and the announcement that 
old Harvey's deposition is to be taken is sufficient to 
crowd the Court-house with an audience that fills the 
young minister of the new Gothic church with bilious 
discontent. His own Sunday audiences never equal 
old Harvey's week day ones. 

By tacit consent, the corner of the bench on Daven- 
port's gallery, where the short winter sunshine comes 
the earliest and lingers the longest, is respected as old 
Harvey's seat. One must be very new to the ways of 
the town, or phenomenally indifferent to old Harvey's 
comfort, to appropriate it. There is no peradventure 
about his coming to occupy it. He comes up in the 
morning to read the New Orleans papers on the 
gallery. He is very methodical in his habits. As 
soon as he has had his breakfast — it is one of the local 
mysteries how old Harvey always makes sure of this 
desirable beginning to his day — he starts for Daven- 
port's, and walks deliberately to the back of the store, 
where there is a barrel turned down upon its side. 
There is a faucet in the barrel, and there are tumblers 
on a shelf over it. Old Harvey asks nothing better of 
Fate than that Davenport's barrel of " Old Bourbon " 



3° 2 ''OLD HARVEY r 

shall repeat the miracle of the widow's cruse. He has 
the freedom of the barrel. But he does not abuse it. 
He does not need to subscribe for any of the city 
papers, for he also has the freedom of the post-office. 
He is at liberty to slip the covers from any body's 
papers or magazines, with the single proviso that he 
puts them back in time for the mail-carriers sent in by 
their respective owners from the different plantations. 
Sometimes, not often, however, he makes mistakes, 
and slips things back into the wrong covers which is 
apt to result in his getting a mild back-biting, as when 
he mailed the New York Clipper, instead of the Chris- 
tia?i at Work, to the young minister, and accidentally 
sent the pamphlet called " How to be beautiful " to 
Miss Varina Dawson. Miss Varina has never spoken 
to him since, but, so far as is known, she is the only 
enemy he has in the world. He tried to explain mat- 
ters to her, but only made the snarl worse, and gave it 
up finally. 

Old Harvey has a good deal of time on his hands 
that he finds it a trifle hard to dispose of. He kills a 
portion of it wandering about town, somewhat as a 
ghost might revisit the scene of his former usefulness 
or happiness. His office became a sinecure during 
the war, and when it ended — well, the carpet-baggers 
had the giving of all the offices in the county then, and 
old Harvey was not eligible — would not take the iron- 
clad oath. His successor in office, his married sis- 
ter's old carriage-driver, Walsh, often comes to him for 
instruction and advice, and he always gives it kindly 
and conscientiously. No one ever saw any bitterness 
in his way of dealing with the new order. If it existed 



'*OLD HARVEY r 303 

in his heart, old Harvey was wise enough to suppress 
all outward show of it. His wanderings about town 
are entirely unofficial, but they have been the means 
of bringing several cases of genuine destitution to the 
ears of those who are able to afford relief. In by-gone 
times old Harvey had a remarkable scent for distress 
of any kind, and the people who marvel now that he 
should never have saved up from his big salary for the 
very rainy day that has overtaken him, will never know 
how prompt he used to be in succoring the needy. 

Any one happening into Davenport's gallery about 
the middle of a hot afternoon is likely to see an old 
gentleman, with his chair tilted back against the 
weather-boarded sides of the store, his feet (encased 
in buttoned shoes which generally have several but- 
tons missing) drawn up on the bottom round of the 
chair, his head reclining peacefully against the hard 
boards, a handkerchief spread over it and his face to 
protect him from the flies. From under this hand- 
kerchief issue a succession of well-modulated snores. 
The natives respect old Harvey asleep as well as 
awake, and pass by him into the store with clumsy 
efforts .at quietness. He says there isn't another spot 
in town where he can sleep as well as in that hide- 
bottomed chair on Davenport's gallery. The river 
breezes blow on him there, and the old man seems to 
like to be " where something is going on." 

His face, when he is awake, shows the very mildest 
type of physiognomy. His eyes are soft and brown, 
and almost wistful in their tender outlook. His hair, 
which is unusually thick for a man of his age, is long 
and white, and curls at the ends in a big wave. He 



304 ''OLD liA RVEVr 

wears it combed straight back, and is perpetually put- 
ting it behind his large ears with an impatient gesture. 
He has a sensitive mouth that goes incongruously 
enough with his square under-jaw. He is just such a 
looking man as you would select from a crowd of men 
for a preacher with a devoted following of women. 

Perhaps there are not more than half a dozen peo- 
ple in the neighborhood who can remember how Joel 
Harvey looked and acted when he was first made 
sheriff of the county. Mrs. Judge Baker is one of the 
few, and she still contends that the handsomest sight 
she ever saw was Harvey, mounted on his big black 
horse, Beelzebub, who always looked as if he was 
snorting fire and brimstone from his blazing eyes and 
wide-stretched nostrils. ^' He had a good deal of the 
devil in him." Mrs. Baker never located her pronouns 
with sufficient accuracy for one to decide whether it 
was Joel Harvey or his big black horse who had that 
Satanic infusion in his blood. 

The duties performed in old Harvey's young and 
active years sometimes amounted to exploits, and are 
frequently recalled by his friends even at this late day 
for the edification of new-comers who may be inclined 
to regard the old man as an ordinary specimen of 
senility and a cumberer of the earth. Before the war 
his duties were the clearly defined ones appertaining 
to his office in all climes and ages, perhaps with such 
slight modifications or variations as local circumstances 
demanded. That dog business perhaps was one of 
these variations. Old Harvey tells that story himself. 
He never tells a story that redounds in the least to his 
own credit. But in the matter of the dogs he cut such 



''OLD HARVEVr 305 

a purely ridiculous figure that he recalls it now as one 
of his most delightful reminiscences. 

" You see," he would say, pushing his long white 
hair behind his big ears with such a vindictive gesture 
that one marveled he did not pluck it out and cast it 
from him by way of permanent riddance, " things had 
come to such a pass in this county that there was not 
any use trying to raise sheep, unless you were philan- 
thropically minded to feed your neighbors' dogs on 
Southdown mutton. The county was just clean plum 
run away with dogs. Every white fellow had his pack 
of deerhounds and his duck dog and bird dog, and 
every nigger had his pack of yelpin' yellow or brindle 
curs that wasn't worth the powder it 'dtake to kill 'em. 
A little more and it would have taken the whole corn 
crop to make corn bread for 'em all. Well, the police 
jury put their heads together to see what could be done 
for the protection of the sheep-raising interests, and it 
resulted in high license. The dog license was put up 
so high that it would take a hundred-dollar-setter or 
pointer to be able to read its title clear, and life was 
rendered practically valueless to the rest of -our dog 
citizens. 

" Of course it fell to me to see the law put into 
execution. This county was either bound to make her 
dogs a source of revenue or else get shet of 'em. It 
was taken for granted a man would only hold on to 
them that was worth paying a big license for, and that 
sort ain't the sheep-killer. Well, may be I didn't have 
a tough job ! I sent my deputies out in every direction, 
and they reported a regular dog massacre following in 
their wake. They woke up one tolerably obstinate old 



3o6 ''OLD HARVeY." 

'coon, however, and I found it necessary to visit hini 
in person. He was waitin' for me. It was old Lige 
Blackman, back yonder in the cypress swamp. He 
called out to me to get down and 'light, as soon as I 
pulled Beelzebub up at his gate, but I didn't have much 
time for fooling with him, so I told him in as few words 
as possible what I'd come for. I'd never seen Lige so 
polite and accommodating. He stood on his gallery 
rubbing his hands one over the other sorter gleeful 
like, and I sat on Beelzebub's back, while we talked 
across his front fence. 

" Presently he grinned all over his wrinkled face. 
' As I understand it, you want my dogs or my 
money, do you, Mr, Harvey ? ' he asked as mealy- 
mouthed as you please. ' Yes, sir,' I said ; but 
before the words were well out of my mouth he took 
down a horn that was hanging on a nail against the 
side of the house and blew a blast that would have 
make Roderick Dhu howl with envy. And then they 
came charging around the house corners, loping 
through the hall, squeezing through the lattice-work 
under the house, prancing, yelping, barking, jumping, 
howling, a whole pack of devils, big dogs and little 
dogs, bloodhounds leashed together with murder in 
their hearts and in their great red eyeballs and lolling 
tongues, deer dogs that had got the worst of the fray 
in a fight, limping along on a broken leg, bulldogs with 
their ears chawed off, yellow curs with no ears at all 
and no tails to speak of. 

"Of all the infernal din ever heard outside of 
Bedlam, those dogs made it, but above it all I could 
hear old man Lige's bland voice : ' Take 'em, Mr. 



''OLD HARVEY." Z^l 

Harvey, take 'em every one. They're entirely 
at your disposal. I'm a law abiding citizen, Mr. 
Harvey.' 

"Beelzebub didn't take in the situation at all, 
and when the whole pack of 'em, twenty, sir, came 
flying at him over the fence and under the gate 
and through the pickets, he first of all let fly at 'em 
with his heels, but all of sudden seemed to conclude 
they were too many for him, and getting the bit be- 
tween his teeth wheeled and started back for town like 
a shot. I couldn't do a thing with him. And we came 
with a retinue, too, I can tell you. Old Lige always 
swore he didn't sick 'em on after Beelzebub turned 
tail ; that he was just laughing a little in his sleeve. 
I don't know how that may be, but I know I left for 
town with twenty dogs at my heels. They dropped 
back one after the other, all but the bloodhounds : 
but when I pulled Beelzebub up at Davenport's finally, 
I had to acknowledge that old Lige had come out 
ahead." 

Old Harvey will tell stories of that kind on himself, 
but he never reminds any one of the countless ser- 
vices he rendered to the county or to individual citi- 
zens in the days of his power and prosperity. But 
there are many such stories extant. When the war 
came and the whole social system was shaken to its 
center, Joel Harvey was put at the head of a vigilance 
committee. People said he would know best how to 
act and there would never be any danger of his judg- 
ment being swept away by passion. No higher trust 
has ever been reposed in him'than the men of his neigh- 
borhood reposed when they went away to the army 



30^ ''OLD HARVEY!'' 

saying : " Look after my people, Joel." He was one 
of the men who showed their heroism by not going to 
the army, though he had no such cruel ordeal to go 
through with as Davenport had. He was an acknowl- 
edged authority, so far as any authority was acknowl- 
edged, and he and Beelzebub were to be seen at any 
hour of the day, or the night either, if there was a whis- 
per of danger or disorder on any of the plantations 
within his reach. 

It was while he was Regulator that Joel Harvey 
made what he calls his " narrow escape." It was an 
escape from matrimony. He has encountered almost 
every sort of peril at one and another time of his life, 
but he still declares that the Widow Mason came nearer 
vanquishing him completely than any thing else of 
earthly mold ever has. 

Although the office of Sheriff was virtually extinct 
for the time being, he still occupied the room in the 
ground floor of the Court-house on whose door in gold 
letters on a panel of black tin were the imposing words 
*' Sheriff's Office." The court-room proper was imme- 
diately over his head, but he seldom penetrated there 
now. It had fallen into the hands of the Ladies' Sew- 
ing Society, which had taken out a contract, seemingly, 
to clothe the entire Confederate Army with jackets 
and trowsers and shirts made out of all sorts of mate- 
rial, from brocatelle window-curtains down to bed- 
ticking, and with a violent departure from all the es- 
tablished canons of tailoring. Box after box of these 
hastily and patriotically constructed garments Sheriff 
Harvey had been called upon to ship for them. Ship- 
ping a thing in those days was fraught with difficulties 



'' OLD HARVEY:' 309 

and uncertainties tliat border on the incomprehensible 
in these days. So, whenever the sheriff was requested 
to come up-stairs to where all the matrons and maid- 
ens of the town were sewing, and snipping, and fold- 
ing, and packing, it was a foregone conclusion that 
there was another box for him to ship to the victims 
of all this unskilled labor. 

The Widow Mason was up there on one of these 
occasions, not sewing, nor cutting, nor folding, nor 
packing, simply crying quietly in one corner and pour- 
ing her woes out into the ears of the only woman who 
seemed to have time to listen to her. This was Mrs. 
Judge Baker, but she too turned a deaf ear on the 
little woman when Sheriff Harvey's head loomed above 
the chattering crowd and hurried forward to give him 
minute directions about the shipping of the box to the 
Redfield Rifles in Richmond. Mrs. Baker was the 
President of the Society. 

*^ Poor child," she said, nodding her head back- 
wards toward the Widow Mason, " she's in a pucker. 
So afraid the cotton-burners will find her cotton that's 
hidden out in the woods. She says she made Demp- 
sey, her driver, mad this morning ; refused to let him 
have coffee three times a day, I believe, and he helped 
hide the cotton, and she is sure he will tell. He's 
already threatened to show it to them the next time 
they visit the neighborhood." 

Joel Harvey made no comment, but that night 
a skiff shot across the river at a point considered 
quite safe from molestation from the gunboat, and 
lying in the bottom of it was a man with his hands 
tied behind him and a bandage over his eyes. He 



3IO " OLD HARVEY r 

was untied and turned loose in the woods on the 
opposite side and advised to go to Vicksburg without 
delay. The next day Joel drove out to the Widow 
Mason's, sitting on the front of a wagon. There were 
two men with him. They had come to move the 
Widow Mason's cotton to another spot in the dense 
forest that surrounded her place, so that in case 
Dempsey concluded to return instead of going to 
Vicksburg, as he had been advised, his information to 
the cotton-burners would be worthless. 

The Widow Mason would have gladly rewarded the 
handsome sheriff for his zeal in her behalf by marry- 
ing him. Widows have a way of making their inten- 
tions palpable without detracting from their fascina- 
tions. Old Harvey is of the opinion to this day that 
if the Marine Brigade had not raided the town just 
about that time and carried him off a prisoner, Mrs. 
Mason would have been Mrs. Harvey, and he would 
have been nobody. 

He considers that the brigade was an instrument 
in the hands of Providence for that occasion only. 
They really did not want him, but to quote old 
Harvey himself once more, " they had gotten so used 
to picking up valuables wherever they landed, that, 
having exhausted the other movables, they took him, 
meaning to return and get the Court-house next 
time." But having taken him, and really not know- 
ing what to do with him, they forwarded him from 
hand to hand until he found himself at Alton Prison. 
There were a lot of fellows there that he knew, 
men who had been captured as scouts on the bat- 
tlefield, men who had been picked up by the way- 



" OLD HARVEVr 31 1 

side sick and worn. They were hungry and gaunt, 
and woe-worn and heart-sick. Harvey says he hung 
his head before them for very shame, because he was 
neither hungry, nor gaunt, nor heart-sick, nor woe- 
worn. But he did the only thing he could do for 
them, sold his gold watch, and added materially to 
their comfort. 

He has never suffered much from that mysterious 
malady called heart-sickness. Old Harvey has always 
been an optimist. When the war first broke out, 
although he was not an original secessionist, he held 
himself in readiness to do whatever should be assigned 
him to do. He was quite sure it was all for the best. 
The conflict was irrepressible, and he rather rejoiced 
to think it would be over and done with during the 
years when he could lend most practical service. 

He was a fatalist in his way, and the fatalist has an 
inward source of serenity that stands him in good 
stead in disjointed times. When Vicksburg fell, of 
course Harvey was not glad of it ; but it was really 
merely a question of time when it must surrender, 
and just think of the numberless precious lives saved 
by the cessation of hostilities. When women com- 
plained in his presence (and there were so few avail- 
able men to whom they could complain in those days, 
that the Regulator had to hear a good many wails) of 
the numberless hardships the war had entailed, lie 
aroused them to a very ambitious pitch by his absolute 
rejoicing over the fact that now the resources of the 
South must be developed, and this war was going to 
prove in the long end a great blessing to them all. It 
made not the least difference that the majority of his 



312 ''OLD HARVEVr 

cheerful prophecies came to naught. They had a good 
effect for the time, and Mrs. Judge Baker declares if 
it had not been for Harvey's remaining at home during 
the war, the women would all either have gone mad or 
died of the blues. Old Harvey can never be brought 
to see himself in the light of a benefactor, past or 
present. He considers his war record something to 
be very much ashamed of, and says his special reason 
for rejoicing in his old bachelorhood is because he 
will never be called on to define his position during 
that great crisis to any child of his for his own con- 
fusion. 

Some few of the men, but none of the women, in 
the county know what is old Harvey's especial claim to 
the almost reverential consideration shown him by the 
older men. When he was Regulator he had a way of 
finding out things that passed ordinary penetration. 
It was at the time when the fewest number of white 
men were left in the county, and the greatest degree 
of dissatisfaction was^rife among the bewildered creat- 
ures who had been thrown upon their own resources 
with a frightful suddenness, that dark whispers of dia- 
bolical plans for securing to themselves the homes and 
possessions of the men who were absent fighting to 
retain them in slavery, came to the Regulator's ears. 

One by one the ringleaders of the plot disappeared 
with a suddenness and a completeness that filled 
the minds of their followers with superstitious ter- 
ror. The most perfect good feeling was soon re- 
stored between the races, and the whispers died 
away. When somebody asked him confidentially after 
the war (for this episode still remains something 



" OLD HARVEVr 3I3 

of a secret) how he managed about ''them " while he 
was a prisoner, he told how Wailes helped him. 

Wailes is as black as ebony. The sheriff bought 
him, a runaway, from a harsh master, and made him his 
own body-servant. Wailes alone knew of the subterra- 
nean prison under the Court-house, where the three 
ringleaders against the peace of the county were in- 
carcerated during one year of the war. It was to him 
the sheriff relinquished the key, and upon him de- 
volved the care of them when the brigade carried 
Harvey off. '' I knew I could trust Wailes," he always 
says, but hedoes not like much to talk about it. Wailes 
is his devoted slave to this day, and he and old Harvey 
alone know that the sleek-looking porter in Daven- 
port's store is one of his incarcerated conspirators, the 
jolly, well-paid engineer in the Widow Mason's gin- 
house another, and the janitor of the new law offices, 
of which the town is so justly proud, a third. Old 
Harvey has been mainly instrumental in securing them 
these positions, and they all three adore him. 

No, old Harvey has nothing especial to be proud 
of. He is very poor now. He is too old to hold office, 
even if he could be elected to it, and he has led the 
veriest grasshopper's life, so far as looking out for 
number one goes ; but he does not seem to be much 
more concerned about number one now than he did 
in the days when he and Beelzebub regulated the 
county, nor will he ever be. Grasshoppers will be 
gra,^?»hoppers. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



TONY S WHITE ANGEL. 



PERHAPS if Tony had been given any choice in 
the matter, he would not have chosen to be 
born free, at a time when the pains and penalties at- 
taching to that condition so far outweighed its facti- 
tious advantages. ^' Freedom " is a word of a fine 
resonant sound, but as Tony was born minus those 
innate cravings for Uberty that we read so much about,, 
his personal experience has inclined him to underrate 
rather than to overrate that abstract good. Lindy and 
he are much given to drawing unfavorable compari- 
sons between their own estate and that of the colored 
folks who inherited owners. 

Were much given, rather, for since the Emanci- 
pation Proclamation has deprived the objects of their 
envy of their superior rights and privileges, and they 
find the boat they are in crowded with those who 
have to shift for themselves, just as Tony and Lindy 
have been doing always, they hold their heads more 
erect and have lost something of that apologetic aspect 
which made them seem always to be deprecating 
existence. 

Lindy is Tony's wife, and has periodically added 
to his sense of the burdensome by increasing his cares 



TONY'S WHITE ANGEL. 315 

as a family man until his quiver is o'er full. Which 
is another boon he does not seem at all grateful for. 
Lindy has social aspirations which Tony and circum- 
stances together combined to repress on all occasions. 
She expends a good deal of time and ingenuity invent- 
ing excuses for expeditions ^' up to the Co'nel's." 
Now it is a bucket of soft-soap that she wants to trade 
off for flour or " 'lasses," again, an exchange of water- 
melon seeds, of which fruit she claims the very best 
variety. But the soft-soap trade and the exchange of 
watermelon seeds are but subterfuges behind which 
lurks her '' hanker " for a talk with Aunt Betsy about 
the coming " distracted meetin'," or something of the 
sort. 

Aunt Betsy is the cook at the Colonel's and all 
the essences of all the good dinners she has ever 
cooked seem to have been absorbed into her ample 
personality, making of her, by some process of alchemy 
unknown to science, the very round and jolly and 
comfortable mortal she is. She treats Tony's '' folks," 
whenever accident brings them into her presence, with 
a sort of condescension that goes well with her tower- 
ing turban and imposing figure. Her sympathy not 
infrequently finds substantial expression in " broken 
vittles " and in tin cans full of coffee grounds that she 
has saved up for them. So, when Tony fishes out of 
the tin pail, where Lindy has put his dinner to keep it 
from the children and the flies, a wing of turkey or a 
section of cold mince pie that certainly never origi- 
nated in his own larder, he knows that his wife has 
been up to the Colonel's. 

It never occurs to either of them to resent 



o 



16 TOA^rS IV 11 17' E ANGEL. 



patronage from such a source as Aunt Betsy. 
The advantages of life are so manifestly on the 
side of the Colonel's cook that the palm of per- 
sonal superiority is meekly accorded her, and Lindy 
holds herself in readiness to accommodate her potent 
friend to any extent. She frequently sends little pro- 
pitiatory, or rather votive, offerings, up to the cabin in 
the Colonel's quarters, where Aunt Betsy reigns 
unofficially after dark ; such as a braided mat, for 
which she has been saving rags for years, or a lot of 
the balsam apples she raises so successfully. 

Personally Tony is not a striking figure. He is long 
and lank and loose jointed. He is narrow-chested 
and has burning black eyes set far back in cavernous 
sockets. He is a '' griff," which means that he is 
neither black nor white nor brown. He suggests the 
idea of having been spoiled in the bleaching. Perhaps 
this is partially due to lack of nourishment, for Tony 
and his folks do not live on the fat of the land. The 
little darkies call him the " Kunger man," and stand in 
unnecessary awe of him. This is due undoubtedly to 
the fact that the mystery enveloping Tony's birth has 
never been solved, and the present generation has 
absorbed among its traditions the queer stories that 
got afloat about him long before they saw the light. 
It was generally understood that he was the son of 
crazy Margaret, who used to wander about the coun- 
try bareheaded and barefooted, alike oblivious to heat 
or cold, rain or drought, until her hair was burned red 
by exposure and her skin was like tanned leather. 
Crazy Margaret would come to the cabin windows or 
doors whenever the pangs of hunger made her seek the 



TONY'S WHITE ANGEL. 317 

face of man, and looked wistfully in, like a starved 
dog. She was an object of superstitious terror to all 
the negroes in the country. Packages of food and 
articles of clothing were placed on shelves outside of 
cabins for her convenience, and that conscience must 
be seared indeed that would permit any tampering 
with the supplies meant for crazy Margaret. She was 
found dead one day in the lint room of the Sellers' 
gin, and sitting by her side on the floor, crying from 
fright or from hunger, was a three-year-old boy. That 
was the first any body ever knew about Tony. 

The manner of his introduction was uncanny, and 
the effect of it upon the people of his o\n\\ color was 
characteristic. He had come to them as a sort of 
undesirable legacy from crazy Margaret, and Death 
was her executor. They were afraid not, to keep life 
in the small, pinched body of the child, for fear of 
vengeance overtaking them through the medium of her 
disembodied spirit. Tony, entirely unconscious of 
his own power, had but to raise those solemn eyes of 
his to the face of man, woman, or child to insure im- 
mediate attention to his bodily needs. 

The tenacity of the vital spark in bodies for 
which no one cares is a phenomenon of frequent 
observation. Tony throve like a stray cur upon 
the bones and crusts flung at him by indifferent 
hands. When he got big enough to pick cotton 
he was promoted from the ranks of the stray curs 
to that of the beasts of burden, and old clothes 
were added to the crusts which had previously 
constituted his chief emolument. No one ever had 
occasion to imagine that Tony wasted speculation on 



3i8 TOA'Y'S WHITE ANGEL. 

the hardships or the pecuHarities of his own condition, 
but he was of a silent turn, and before he was well out 
of his 'teens the colored people had settled in their 
own minds that he was in close communion with Old 
Nick, whenever one of his dumb spells came over him. 

Some Texas travelers camped out in the woods 
near town one night, when Tony was about eighteen 
years old, and he was sent out to the camp by the 
woman who had a one year's lease of him, with but- 
ter-milk to sell. That was the last that was seen of 
him for three years. One day the husband of Tony's 
defrauded lessee went to town with a load of cotton, 
and brought back the astonishing information that 
Tony was living in town and that he had a wife ! 
His story was received with scoffing incredulity until 
corroborated by more than half-a-dozen witnesses. 
One of these testified that crazy Margaret's boy 
was living in the old cow-shed on the Myers' place, 
and worked the Myers' garden for house rent. 
Another, that his wife was a peaked-lookin' critter 
that went out scrubbin' w'en any body wanted scrub- 
bin', en' staid at home to help Tony in the Myers' 
garden when they didn't. Another, that Tony had 
become a '' brag " fiddler and was " givin' it out " 
that if the folks wanted him to fiddle for 'em of Sat- 
urday nights, he would do it for four bits a night. 

Curiosity was rife for a little while as to how Tony 
and his wife were going to keep soul and body to- 
gether, but he was a man now, and the owner of a 
wife and a fiddle. Such an equipment ought to be 
sufficient to launch any man successfully upon life's 
troubled waters, so, considering their obligations to 



TONYS WHITE ANGEL. 3^9 

the spirit of crazy Margaret canceled by his volun- 
tary departure from among them, they washed their 
hands of him. 

The home in which Tony and Lindy began life was 
not an abode of luxury. Once upon a time Judge 
Myers, in a moment of bucolic indiscretion, had de- 
termined " to keep Alderneys," and having imported 
a fine young heifer, with mild, shy eyes, he luxuriated 
in imagination, for a brief while, in such cream as had 
never before blessed the local palate. No one ever 
thought of such a thing as sheltering cows in that 
mild climate, but an Alderney was a different thing, 
and the Judge built a house for the distinguished for- 
eigner and cooped her up in it, very much as he 
would have cooped a mammoth canary, rendering life 
such a burden to the poor thing that she contrived to 
hang herself with her halter. After that the cow- 
house was tenantless until Tony applied for it, prom- 
ising to keep the Judge's garden in order by way 
of rent. 

The Judge's garden was kept in passable order, 
but Lindy's turbaned head was seen stooping over the 
growing lettuce or pease more often than Tony's. 
Tony's fiddle seemed to get in the way of his useful- 
ness. And not infrequently the plaintive melodies to 
which he ga.ve preference when playing for his own 
solace, floated out upon the air at the hours of the 
day when most men are presumed to be absorbed in 
the arduous duty of bread-winning. Tony's habit 
was to lounge into town of early mornings and place 
himself where any one in need of a whitewasher 
might possibly see him and engage him. Or, if he 



320 7V.VV'S WHITE ANGEL. 

saw a load of wood freshly dumped down before a 
door, he would make application for the privilege of 
Gutting it into handy shape and flinging it into the 
back yard. Or, if it was midsummer, and the cisterns 
were all giving out, he could earn a few dimes by beg- 
ging an empty pork barrel, knocking a rough sled 
together, borrowing a mule, and hauling water from 
the Long Pond to the different households. It was a 
sort of a hand-to-mouth existence, and the hand fre- 
quently went to the mouth with very slender offer- 
ings ; but what could a '' free nigger " do ? Even the 
town people ovv^ned their own servants, and Tony and 
Lindy were forlorn outsiders. 

Lindy made some pathetic efforts at first to beau- 
tify the cow-house, but that was before the pickanin- 
nies began to come so rapidly. She and Tony 
knocked up some dry-goods boxes and empty barrels, 
and made what they called " furntcher," and she 
planted some prince's feather and zinnias on either 
side of the door, but the pigs of the neighborhood, 
mindful of the reckless quantity of corn that used to 
be fed to that ill-fated Alderney, had grown attached 
to the spot, and persisted in rooting them up, un- 
til Lindy's aesthetic yearnings were completely 
crushed. 

Sometimes the people at the tavern would get 
behindhand when court was in session, and send for 
her to do chores or help in the kitchen. Those were 
Tony's white days. He knew she would come back 
with ample provision for a superior supper, and he 
could fiddle all day, sitting out under the sweet-gum 
tree at the back of the cow-house, without any of 



TONY'S WHITE ANGEL. 32 1 

those sharp reprimands for his "triflingness " which 
Lindy flung at him in moments of exasperation. 

Lindy was not the only one who regarded Tony's 
fiddling propensities with disapprobation. The doc- 
tor, driving in from the country, hot, and worried, 
and anxious about his '' case," passing close by the 
sweet-gum tree, that grew just off the road, would 
swear mildly as the first plaintive notes of Tony's 
fiddle reached his ears, pronouncing it a blanked 
" shame that Myers should shelter that vagrant, in- 
stead of helping to rid the county of him." The 
Judge's wife, missing her imported Plymouth Rock 
cock one day, and a lot of ''broilers" the next, and 
bitterly conscious of a steady depletion in the ranks 
of her poultry, declared in tones of conviction that 
it was " nobody but that fiddling free darkey down 
there in the hollow, stealing them." But as there was 
never even a feather discovered in the neighborhood of 
the cow-house, and Tony and Lindy certainly did not 
look as if they ate much broiled chicken, there was 
no ground for action. 

Tony made a dollar and a half once in a single 
night, and this sudden influx of prosperity had an 
appreciable effect upon his bearing for a whole week 
afterward. The occasion was a wedding in high 
life. The groom himself made application for Tony 
and his fiddle, or, as Mrs. Tony sarcastically put it, 
for " de fiddle and Tony." Lindy's outburst of irony 
on this occasion was caused by her not being included 
in the invitation to the wedding. Tony was a neces- 
sity, but she, being in a low condition of society, with- 
out the open sesame of a fiddle, could not be in- 



32 2 7ViVY'S WHITE ANGEL. 

eluded in a list of invitations that recognized the 
retainers of F. F. V.'s exclusively. The groom-elect 
found Tony sitting on an inverted mackerel kit in the 
back door of the cow-house, extracting the most 
soothing and nerve-quieting strains from his violin 
for the benefit of Lindy, who was rasping the family 
wearing apparel over the face of an exceedingly 
rough washboard. The suds flew from her vigorous 
fists in great snowy flecks, smiting Tony in the eyes 
and on the cheeks occasionallv, which necessitated a 
break in the melody while he applied a very ragged 
shirt sleeve to the wet spot, but produced no more 
violent protest. 

'' Fse come to gi'e you a fus'-class job, ol' man." 
Thus the groom-elect, looking down patronizingly 
upon the musician on the mackerel kit. 

Tony laid his violin across his knee, and looked 
up at him. Lindy, catching the word " job," flung the 
suds from her arms and came forward, wiping her 
hands on her blue-checked apron. 

'' I'se gwine to be married t'night," the gentleman 
from the big house continued, thrusting his hands into 
his trowsers pockets, " en Mars Jimmie, he say he 
don' wan' no quarter nigger doin's 'bout it " (Mars 
Jimmie was the Colonel's oldest son, home from 
Yale only a little while, and this was Lem, his body 
servant, who drove those spanking grays, and sat in 
the buggy so patiently while Mars Jimmie was 
" sparking " the doctor's daughter). " I'se gwine t' be 
j'ined in de ban's uv holy wedlock to Miss Marfy 
Ann. She waits on ol' Miss, and Mars Jimmie say he 
gwine see it done up in style. I come to 'gage you to 



TOjVV'S WIIirE ANGEL. 323 

play for us. We gwine to be married in de big house 
hall." 

Tony stood up respectfully and glanced down at 
his tatters. Then he looked anxiously toward Lindy. 
But Lindy was just then wondering if it would have 
" hurted " Aunt Betsy to send her " a invite " too. 
Marfy Ann, she knew, was Aunt Betsy's daughter. 
" I mout 'a' holped some wid de supper," she thought 
bitterly. 

" I ain' skursely fitt'n to fiddle at de big house, 
Lem," Tony says finally. " I mout git laughed at by 
de folks." 

" Is dem de bes' duds you got ? " Lem asks frankly, 
placidly surveying Tony from head to foot. 

^'De ve'y bes'." 

" Then I 'lows I'll hafter sen' you some down. 
You don' hafter go to de big house. We gwine 
t' dance in de crib, but I don' wan' no sech buzzard 
fiddlin' at my weddin'. Mars Jimmie say it all got to 
be firs'-class." 

There was no resentment in Tony's heart at this 
candid slur upon his personal appearance. Lem was 
privileged. He belonged to the first white people in 
the county, and Tony had the misfortune to belong to 
nobody at all. Lem sent him the promised suit of 
clothes, and the combined influence of being well 
dressed and well fed told so happily upon the inner 
man that he played as no one had ever heard him 
play, and Mars Jimmie, coming up from the big house 
with a company of visitors to see how the " break- 
down" was progressing, himself handed him the dollar 
and a half to which he dated back lonor afterward. 



324 TONrs WHITE ANGEL. 

But it was that summer when the cholera broke out 
that Tony and Lindy realized the full bitterness 
of belonging to no one. This fell disease always 
attacks their race with peculiar virulence. Their 
habits invite it. The plantations were deserted. 
Owners, careful of their properly, moved their slaves 
out by the wagon-loads to the sweet, pure woods, 
where they formed encampments and lived like 
nomads in tents, and were fed and cared for, and 
took no more thought of the morrow than the lilies 
of the field. Only Tony and Tind}^ stayed on in the 
old cow-house, with no one to care much what became 
of them. When it got out that one of Tony's boys 
was " down," the doctor, going his rounds, stopped 
his buggy under the sweet-gum, got out, and going in, 
ministered to the small sufferer, supplying medicines 
from his leather case, and giving Lind)^ minute direc- 
tions about the care and diet of the family ; but the 
doctor was doing the work of ten men just then and 
could not stay very long. 

Another one of the boys was taken that night, and 
then Tony, and then Lindy. It was gloomy times at 
the cow-house. Tony never had made much of an 
outcry against fate, and he didn't now. The cow-house 
door stood open day and night. The pigs walked in 
occasionall}'', stood with their heads raised inquiringly, 
sniffed at the baby in the cradle, where the flies 
swarmed thickest, and walked out disgustedly. Tony's 
fiddle was laid up on the joist over the door. It was 
very silent about the cabin, and it grew dark down 
there on the ^^<gQ of the woods very fast. There were 
long black vistas stretching away from behind the 



TONY'S WHITE ANGEL. 325 

svveet-guQi into the thick forests that belonged to the 
Myers place. It was on the second deiy after Tony 
and Lindy had both been stricken, and he was lying 
there wondering dismally who would be " down " next, 
that he saw an angel coming toward him along this 
dark woodland path. It moved forward swiftly and 
quietly until it stood on the threshold of the cow-house. 
Its raiment was pure white, and its eyes shone with a 
starry radiance as they tried to pierce the gloom of 
the cabin. The angel seemed to halt with a very 
human reluctance, and then it sent a sweet human 
voice ahead of it to ask : 

" Tony and Lindy, are you in here ? " 

" Yessum," Tony answered almost in a whisper, for 
it might be the Angel of Death come to take him and 
Lindy and the little ones to a land where there was 
neither bond nor free, and he shouldn't like to lose 
any chance of getting to a better place. But it was 
only the Angel of Pity, and there, just behind her, 
was Aunt Betsy. He had not noticed at first any thing 
but tlirc White Angel coming toward him out of the 
shadows. Aunt Betsy put down a heavy basket just 
inside the door, and scratching a match against the 
side of the cabin, she applied it to a candle she had 
brought with her. The White Angel uttered a little 
groan when the feeble illumination showed her the 
state of affairs, and Aunt Betsy said curtly : 

" I tol' you you couldn' stan' it, Missy," and Tony 
discovered then that it was " Missy " from the big 
house. 

Tony and Lindy had never had any grudge against 
'' w'ite folks." They had never even speculated upon 



326 TO.VY'S WHITE ANGEL. 

the injustice of Fate in failing to supply them with 
w'ite folks of their own ; but now for the first time 
they tasted the sweets of being cared for and looked 
after as if they were of some importance in God's 
great universe, and, ignominious to relate, they would 
gladly have bartered their birthright of liberty for the 
messes of pottage brought by Aunt Betsy from the 
big house, or for the delightful sensation of being 
ordered about by Missy. 

Of course Tony and Lindy did not die. There was 
no especial point in keeping them alive, but Missy's 
sympathies having been enlisted by Aunt Betsy's 
representations, the people at the cow-house became 
a sort of hobby with her, and they never lacked a 
patron saint after that cholera summer. 

Long after Tony had taken up the old fiddling life, 
with occasional interruptions in the way of jobs, he 
used to wonder if there wasn't something he could do 
for " Missy " by way of showing the gratitude that 
thrilled every fiber of his gaunt frame. But there is 
so little the worshiping devotee can do for his patron 
saint. Tony never cut down a bee-tree in the woods 
but the whitest of the comb was saved for Missy, and 
when he chanced to kill a blue heron he plucked the 
soft downy plumes out with infinite care for her 
adorning ; but all this was inadequate. He longed 
to do something for Missy that she could remember 
always, as he must always remember the night when 
she came toward his cabin from the gloom and dark- 
ness and shed a radiance all around about his miser- 
able home. 

After many days Tony's chance came to him. It 



TONYS WHITE ANGEL. ' 327 

came to him early in the days when every body was 
free, and the stigma of " free nigger " was removed 
from him and Lindy, and other folks had to scramble 
a good deal as they had always done. There was a 
certain sort of balm in it all. 

or Miss lay dying. There was no men-folks up at 
the big house then. The Colonel and Mars' Jimmie 
were fighting in the neighborhood of Richmond. 
There were plenty of men in town, but they all wore 
the blue uniform of the liberators. Tony reaped 
something of a harvest in those garrison days. The 
men liked to hear him play, and as he had always 
been free, they liked to question him. He was not 
under the bondage of fear that sealed the old slaves' 
lips. He picked up a good many dimes from them, 
which helped to make things more comfortable, and 
he picked up something else. He picked up a secret 
which he kept to himself dumbly. 

or Miss lay dying, up at the big house, and " Missy" 
was in sore straits. Aunt Betsy clung to her but 
nobody else. The men down at the barracks said 
they were going to search the house for arms, one 
night, " sick woman or no sick woman." Tony heard 
it. There was no use hiding things from him. 

The rain began to fall that night in that slow, steady, 
dismal fashion so trying to the strongest nerves. It 
fell on the shingle roof of the big house with a sullen 
patter, it dripped from the mossy eaves to the violet 
borders around the gallery with a dreary regularity 
that sounded like stealthy footsteps, it rustled in the 
leaves of the rose-bushes with ghostly whisperings. 
There were no lights in the big house, only a faint 



o 



28 TOA'V'S WHITE ANGEL, 



glimmer from the lamp sitting on the floor behind the 
washstand in Ol' Miss's room. Aunt Betsy sat wide 
awake in a chair by the bed. There was nothing for 
her to do but to wait. Missy stole from the room 
out upon the gallery in restless misery. The scent of 
the damp earth greeted her, mingled with the heavy 
perfume of cape jessamines and honeysuckles. She 
heard the soft patter of the rain on the violet beds, 
and then she heard something else — a slow, steady, 
stealthy foot-fall. She placed herself behind one of 
the big pillars and listened with bated breath. It was 
too dark to see any thing. It came nearer ; it reached 
the corner of the violet beds ; now it was at the front 
steps. Whoever it he was, was coming in — no, he had 
passed on. Presently the foot-fall sounded again, just 
where she had at first heard it. The clouds parted 
suddenly to let the full moon shed its light upon a 
tall form wrapped in a blue overcoat. The same 
moon-beam revealed Missy, white, wan, and alert with 
terror. 

" Missy ! " The call came to her softly, but she 
was afraid to answer. Then the man in the uniform 
came close to the pillar against which she was leaning 
for support. It was Tony. 

'' Missy," he said, '' don't be skeered. Tony's got 
a gun here, and he jis' 'lowed he'd loaf roun' to see 
nobody didn't pester you t'night. I's gwine to play 
patterole, honey, so you kin git a good night's res'. 
You kin trus' Tony, Missy." 

She thanked him with tears in her voice, and went 
back to the room where Aunt Betsy was watching and 
or Miss was waiting. 



TONY'S WHITE ANGEL. 329 

Nobody ever knew where Tony got that Federal 
uniform and that gun — stole them most probably. 
Nobody ever knew that it answered his purpose by 
'* scaring " away the men who meant to search the 
big house that night. Nobody ever knew that it was 
Tony who, representing Missy's case at head-quarters 
the next morning, secured her against molestation. 
But he succeeded in doing something she remembered 
all the days of her life. That was all he asked. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

MISS FLO's HARVEST. 

WHEN Marshall, the hostler on the Colonel's hill 
place, is seen walking toward the stables of 
mornings with his head drooped dejectedly and his 
brawny arms folded across his chest, while his jolly 
round face is lengthened to its utmost capacity, some- 
what as if he were following an invisible hearse con- 
taining the remains of his best friend, and abstractedly 
grooms the carriage horses with the back of a brush 
to a hymn in slow meter : when Uncle Reuben lays 
down the garden-line he has prepared to stretch 
across the cabbage bed, where he is about to set out 
the young plants with geometrical precision, for the 
sole purpose of jumping over the garden-fence to 
inflict condign punishment upon Sam for whistling 
'' Captain Jinks " as he drives the calves to water : 
when breakfast gets a little later every morning, and 
Aunt Minervy grinds the coffee solemnly to the tune 
of " Satan's waitin', yes, a-waitin' fur my soul," and 
displays a disposition to soar above such groveling 
details as pin-feathers in the broiled chickens, or a 
reckless quantity of soda in the biscuit : when 'Mandy 
leaves the scrubbing-mop and her bucket of soft-soap 
in the middle of the big house hall, while she runs 
down to the front gate to tell '' Sis Santhy " about 



MISS FLO'S HARVEST. 331 

Vance's seeing the devil in his cotton-row yesterday 
in the shape of a white rabbit, with whom he held fear- 
less and defiant converse : when Aunt Rosetta tune- 
fully requests the Angel of Death to come on his 
milk-white " speed " and take her up to glory, with 
exalted indifference to the fate of the milk she is dis- 
tributing impartially between the piggin and the 
ground it rests on ; then the people at the big 
house know that protracted meeting is at hand, and 
Miss Flo's eyes begin to glow with a mild species of 
acquisitiveness. 

The time of her annual harvest is approaching, and 
needs must that she should gather it very closely. It 
is not precisely a harvesting after her own heart ; it 
is rather the hasty snatching of a few grains of com- 
pensation from many bushels of discomfort. Miss Flo 
has learned to appreciate the day of small things ; and 
when, by token of all the infallible signs here given, 
she knows that protracted meeting is at hand, and will 
certainly culminate in a big baptizing in the creek 
that runs musically and merrily over its pebbly 
bottom through the place to meet the river, she 
judiciously casts about in her mind's eye to decide 
what more she can dispense with from her private 
wardrobe and to overhaul the fashion-books. 

Miss Flo's feelings at the approach of this solemn fes- 
tival are by no means unmixed. She has never gotten 
over that trick of flushing redly whenever one of the 
ladies from the quarters expresses serious dissatisfac- 
tion with her method of draping and fitting, and she 
takes herself roundly to task for objecting to the dis- 
comfort of having people ride over from other plan- 



332 MISS FLO'S HARVEST. 

tations with their purchases of dry goods tied up in 
bandanna handkerchiefs to inquire if she can make a 
" coat " within the prescribed limits of their time and 
purse. She takes herself to task because, having 
deliberately concluded that this was her only way of 
escaping dependence, she can't see why she must 
wince afresh at every bargain she drives. 

Miss Flo is the Colonel's sister, and lives at the hill 
place with him. Before the war she owned slaves, but 
no land. The Colonel worked her slaves and paid her 
hire for them. In those days life was a very pleasant 
thing, filled up with easy-going, lady-like concerns 
that involved a leisurely amount of reading and riding 
and visiting and being visited, and flower culture, and 
so on. People used to say Miss Flo was indolent. 
She never could bring herself to do any thing that 
required decided exertion, whether physical or mental. 
In the days when she was a slave-owner, and had to 
take no anxious thought for the morrow, she used to 
get through with an incredible amount of fancy-work. 
She had a fixed chair in a fixed corner of the family 
sitting-room, where she would sit and rock slowly, 
while she worked on a piece of fine, eye-trying em- 
broidery for personal decoration or on gorgeous 
stuffed crewel-work for sofa cushions. Every 
household in the family connection has a pair of 
sofa cushions of Miss Flo's embroidering. She was a 
pleasant and placid fixture in the family circle — one of 
those admirable organizations that never get out of 
order, and can be warranted to run (so to speak) with- 
out needing any regulating for an incredible space of 
time, 



MISS FLO'S HARVEST. VciZ 

That she was still Miss Flo was (or had been at 
first) a matter of surprise to everybody who knew her. 
But people had ceased speculating about her long 
since, for it had been almost an engagement between 
her and Larry Stacy (whose father's plantation joined 
the Colonel's) before the war, and every body looked 
for their marriage when Larry came home, a battle- 
scarred hero, with only one leg and an ugly red mark 
across his handsome cheek. But it never came off, 
and, as time went by, his friends said she had flinched 
from fulfilling her promise because of that ugly red 
mark and his wooden leg, and silently pronounced 
condemnation on her for a '' heartless creature " ; and 
her friends said Larry Stacy had meant to have stocked 
the wild lands his father had given him with her 
negroes, and had no use for her after her riches had 
taken themselves off, not on the traditional wings that 
riches are said to be expert in the use of, but on a lot 
of very sturdy legs ; and they silently pronounced con- 
demnation on him for a " mercenary wretch " ; and so 
things had settled themselves on an entirely new 
basis, Miss Flo becoming more than ever of a fixture 
in the corner of the family sitting-room, and Larry 
Stacy gradually becoming absorbed in the manage- 
ment of the plantation that was his now that his father 
was dead. 

In the fall of the year, when the frost stripped the 
leaves from the trees in the pasture land that lay be- 
tween the two plantations, the two big houses were 
visible to each other, and often the Colonel and Larry 
would ride over each other's crops together, or hunt 
snipe and duck in company, sometimes going back to 



334 MISS FL a S HA R VE S T. 

Larry's house to enjoy the fruits of their industry 
socially ; but it was an understood thing that Larry 
was never to stop at the Colonel's. Fate had fixed a 
gulf that time seemed unable to bridge. But very 
few words had ever been expended on it. 

It was in those early days after the war, when it 
seemed incumbent upon every one to put his hand to 
the plow, that Miss Flo began casting about for a 
plow to put her hand to. She couldn't teach music. 
There were ten women wanting to teach music for 
every possible pupil in the country. A school w^as not 
feasible where miles intervened between every place, 
and perhaps only one or two children on each planta- 
tion. The Colonel, in common with all his neighbors, 
was burdened with debt, and had a large family of his 
own. She couldn't eat the bread of dependence, even 
if it was supplied ungrudgingly by a brother's hand. 
She, who had never earned a cent of money in her life, 
told herself positively that she '' must earn her own 
living"; must find her plow. It was during those 
stringent times that she extracted her first grain of 
compensation from the bushel of discomfort always 
entailed by protracted meeting. Aunt Minervy, the 
Colonel's cook, had unwittingly indicated to Miss Flo 
the location of her plow ; she had put her hand to it 
promptly and had never looked back, indeed, had 
even come to regard the annual return of *' 'stracted 
meetin' " as a cloud with a very decided silver lining. 

The dress-making and bonnet-trimming business 
had grown immensely on her hands since that night, 
when, after she had gone up stairs to her own bed- 
room, consciously weighed down by the burden of a 



MISS FLO'S HARVEST. 335 

fruitless day, there came a tapping at her chamber 
door, and Aunt Minervy entered, almost filling the 
dainty little apartment with her huge personality. 
She looked abashed as she stood before the young 
lady, twirling the kitchen key a trifle nervously in her 
shining fingers. Aunt Minervy had been Aunt Min- 
ervy ever since Miss Flo could remember — capable, 
kind, black, and jolly. When she had any thing to say 
to her ''w'ite folks," touching her own concerns, she 
was given to apologetic prefaces that were apt to prove 
prolix. On the present occasion it was evident she 
had an unusual request to prefer, and her preface was 
proportionately strung out. 

" I'se got frew in de kitchen, honey. Ary yother 
nigger would 'a jus' slop things over any which-a-way; 
but Minervy ain' none er dat sort doa dese cert'nly is 
times uv refreshin' en' I 'lows w'en I wuz scrubbin' off 
de sheffs t' night dat Br'er Tucker would 'a got frew 
prayin' fo' I come in sight, but dat make no diffunce 
to Minervy. I sez, nigger, dirt is dirt, en soap is 
soap, en Br'er Tucker's pra'r wouldn' set well, honey, 
ef dem messed up kitchen shelves be'n h'antin' me all 
frew meetin' ; so den, dat make me say w'at I does 
say, dese triflin' young ones dat is comin' on ain' 
wuth de powder it 'ud tek t' blow 'em up wid, 'kase I 
tol' Milly to scrub dem sheffs whilst I wuz mekin' de 
col' slaw for you-all's Sunday dinner. I ain't gwine to 
starve my w'ite folks 'kase 'stracted meetin's gwine 
on, honey. I 'lowed fo' I step up home to res' my ol' 
bones some, I'd jus' sorter feel roun' t' see if you kin 
holp de ol' woman to fix up some fur de baptizin*. 
Der '11 be a power uv folks yhere nex' Sunday. Dey'll 



33^ MISS FLO'S HARVEST. 

jus* swarm lak bees in swarmin' times, en I don' wan' 
de folks to go back home en say K3^ernil Barker's 
cook was de Jo Bunkis' critter at de baptizin'. I lef 
you plenty uv sof gingerbread in de dinin'-room safe, 
honey. Minervy a'in' forgit w'at her chile like bes'. 
You see, Miss Flo', folks sorter 'xpects somethin' frum 
me 'kase my w'ite folks is quality ; en w'en I cuts' a 
dash, den dey t'inks my w'ite folks is all right, but 
w'en I 'pears at meetin' lak a w'ip rooster wid he's tail 
fedders all gone, den dey say folks at xle Kyernil's 
mus' be runnin' down at de heels. I knows how folks 
talk, Minervy ain' be'n in dis worl' forty year fur 
nothin'. You needn' be sparin' wid de light bread 
t'morrer, honey. I'll set some mo' t' rise in the 
mornin'." 

A direct inquiry into the nature of Aunt Minervy's 
immediate wants brought her a little nearer to the un- 
derlying cause of this visitation. 

*' Well, you see, honey, yo' br'er George, he pays me 
ten dollars a month fur cookin' fur de w'ite folks. 
W'at good dat ten dollars do me w'en I twelve mile 
fum a sto', en nuthin' but a passel uv thievin' young 
ones t' spen' it fur me ef I don' git ahead uv 'em en 
spen' it myself ? Den I sez (I wuz thinkin' 'bout it, 
honey, whilst I was mekin' de floatin'-island fur you t' 
top off wid t'morrer), why don' you go right-smack up 
to Miss Flo en tell her ef she'll give you dat black 
grenadeer coat er hern, wid de gimpure lace on de 
bas', en her las' summer flat wid de red roses on it, 
en' a lace scarf t' war roun' yo' neck, en a hoop skyirt, 
honey, en mebbe a par uv ol' stockin's you don't want 
ter pester 'bout darnin', dat you'll squar counts dis 



MISS FLO'S HARVEST. 337 

month wid Mars George (and sometimes, honey, it do 
look lak squeezin' blood outen a turnip t' git money 
out'n our w'ite folks) so I jes' finish fixin' up yo' 
Sunday's dinner en lock it up in de dinin'-room safe, 
honey, 'fo' I comes up yhere to ax you would you 
trade wid me." 

Miss Flo looked at Minervy's generous proportions 
and thought of the pretty black grenadine she had 
cherished as one of her most elegant antebellum pos- 
sessions. The two did not go well together at all. 
She suggested its insufficient dimensions ; Aunt Min- 
ervy suggested its possible enlargement. She thought 
of her brother's perplexed and anxious face whenever 
pay-day returned, which it seemed to do with cruel 
frequency, and resolved to " trade." 

And that v/as the beginning of it. Aunt Minerva 
in the black grenadine had proved a splendid adver- 
tisement and had been a shining mark for envious ad- 
miration at the big baptizing, and the colonel had 
looked so relieved when she told him he didn't need 
to pay his cook any cash that month, that she felt 
quite rewarded for the sacrifice of the grenadine with 
the lace-trimmed basque. 

After that it came to be a tacit understanding that 
Miss Flo was to be appealed to in all matters of dress 
and fashion, until, from the original sale of obsolete 
finery and made-over bonnets, she got to be a dress- 
maker at first hand, and whenever any body saw a 
colored lady ambling slowly toward the big house on 
Pebbly Creek with a well-stuffed bandanna handker- 
chief swaying from the pommel of her saddle, or filling 
all the space in front of her, it was safe to predict that 



33^ MISS FLO'S HARVEST. 

there was more work on hand for Miss Flo and more 
gorgeoLisness for the quarters. 

And now " 'stracted meetin' " was again in prog- 
ress, and another big baptizing was imminent, and the 
reason Miss Flo's eyes '' glowed with mild acquisitive- 
ness " was because her exchequer was completely 
depleted, and she did so very much want to send a 
flower-list North and get a lot of those wonderful new 
violets and fuchsias that showed up so marvelously 
in the cuts in the back of all the periodicals. She had 
never grown quite accustomed to take orders from 
her lady patronesses, and a glimpse into her workshop 
(where bed, and bureau, and table were sometimes 
piled high with dress goods that frequently suggested 
the star spangled banner and Dolly Varden all rolled 
into one), sometimes showed the owner of all this gor- 
geousness standing in an attitude of deprecating 
meekness before the statuesque young woman whom 
fate had assigned her for a mantua-maker. 

The harvest this year promised to be better than on 
any previous occasion. There had been nothing spe- 
cial to dampen the hopes of the planters or storekeep- 
ers ; so credit was easy to obtain and with the reck- 
less unthrift of the race, the prospect of a year's live- 
lihood was willingly bartered for the fleeting glory of 
a barbaric display at the baptizing. It was to take 
place in Pebbly Creek, so Miss Flo and the Colonel's 
family must perforce be eye-witnesses of the proceed- 
ings, as the bridge that spanned the creek just in 
front of the house made too good- a platform for 
the exhorters to be overlooked. 

It was on the eve of the momentous day that Miss 



MISS FLO'S HARVEST. 339 

Flo was summoned mysteriously from the family circle 
by a dark upraised hand in the dimly-lighted hall, and a 
softly uttered " Miss Flo, please, ma'am." She respond- 
ed promptly, but started slightly as she found her- 
self face to face with Larry Stacy's body-servant. It 
was Jeff. She knew him well, for in the old days 
when Larry used to come over so often in the buggy, 
sometimes to stay all the evening, at others just to 
take her for a long, swift, delicious drive through the 
sweet-scented country roads, Jeff was always on hand, 
and it had seemed to her then that Jeff's keen black 
eyes had penetrated the secret that she had much 
rather had hidden from the eyes of all the world. 
She seldom saw him now. She had heard that he 
was true as steel in Larry's time of trouble, and had 
clung to him as faithfully in his dark days as in his 
bright ones. Perhaps it was this knowledge that 
made it easy for her to greet him kindly after that 
first start of surprise. He retreated before her until 
he had decoyed her well out of ear-shot of the rest, 
and then said stammeringly, whirling his old felt hat 
about nervously the while : 

" Miss Flo, I come to ax a 'commodashun from 
you. I'se one uv de toters t'morrer at debaptizin', en 
I 'lowed you could help me to get fixed up. I wants 
a black coat en a vest, en Mars Larry, you see. Mars 
Larry's mouty peaked dese days. I kyarn' git into 
his'n, en' I thought maybe you'd sell me one er de 
Colonel's, jus' fur ol' time's sake, Miss Flo." 

Miss Flo leaned a trifle heavily on the table in the 
hall that was littered with the week's accumulation of 
newspapers and magazines. Her first inclination had 



340 MISS FLO'S HARVEST. 

been toward the ludicrous view of Larry Stacy's 
body-servant coming to her with such a petition. 

The position of "toter" was a time-honored and dig- 
nified one, decided by lot, only individuals of tried pluck 
and unquestioned muscle being eligible thereto. 
'Stracted meetin' and big baptizings were prolific of 
hysteria. The sisters were much given to shouting 
themselves into a state of collapse, and the interests 
of good order demanded that there should always be 
some four or five muscular " toters " detailed to bear 
the wriggling, squirming, kicking, moaning mass of 
humanity into the receiving room prepared for the 
sufferers. The lot had fallen upon Jeff this time, and 
he was minded to do himself credit. He and the 
Colonel were so exactly of one size that it had occurred 
to him that Miss Flo's intercession in his behalf was 
all that would be necessary for his fitting adornment. 

But that allusion to Larry Stacy's altered condition 
and to old times had taken the whole affair out of the 
realm of the ridiculous for Miss Flo. Jeff had been 
good to his master all these years, and with a meek- 
ness of spirit that surprised herself she felt impelled 
to send him back home happy. Why should she care 
who knew ? And yet she did. She wondered if 
Jeff, in the confidence of a life-long attendance on his 
master, had imparted his intentions in this matter to 
him. She was relieved when he voluntarily added : 

'' Mars' Larry 'ud skin me ef he knowed I'd pestered 
you, but de folks tells me you's mighty 'commodatin', 
Miss Flo, en ef de boss don't 'ject." 

The boss did not object, and Jeff went home the 
proud possessor of a coat the Colonel had discarded 



MISS FLO'S HARVEST. 341 

as soon after the war as he could reopen negotiations 
with his city tailor. The '' confounded thing " 
pinched him in the arm-holes, and the Colonel had 
never yet voluntarily submitted to be pinched by any 
thing. Miss Flo fretted mildly over the matter, 
wishing she felt quite sure that she had done the 
right thing, and finally concluding, with a passionate 
burst of tears, that she did not ^' care two bits whether 
Larry Stacy, with the whole of the rest of the world 
thrown in, knew how she made her living." 

The morning of the big baptizing was perfect for 
the purpose, and the procession of the pilgrims began 
to file past the big house early in the morning — so 
early, in fact, that the Colonel, who was blackening 
his own shoes on the tool chest on the back gallery, 
looked up in some surprise at the soft rumble of 
wheels out in the dusty road. It was a brand-new 
buggy with a shining top, and the black horse that 
was in its shafts stepped out briskly, proudly con- 
scious of his glittering new harness. The man that 
held the reins had been reared under the Colonel's 
eye as his own body attendant. He lived on the 
Sprague place now, fifteen miles further back, and 
had come early because he had to drive the parson 
over to Pebbly Creek. The Colonel was portly, and 
never had blackened his own shoes, save under pro- 
test. Perhaps it was the stooping over the tool-chest 
that sent the blood in such a rush to his head as Lem- 
uel raised his new hat gracefully and waved him a 
greeting across the yard fence. He returned the 
greeting with an indifferent " How'ye, boys," before 
applying himself with savage energy to his left shoe, 



342 MISS FLO'S HARVEST. 

but he muttered something between his teeth about 
*' bottom rails being on top," or something of that 
sort. The Colonel has not the making of a philoso- 
pher in him. 

In the absence of other amusement or even dis- 
traction on that long empty Sunday morning, the 
folks at the big house, grouped idly on the front gal- 
lery, watched the " swarming," as Aunt Minerva had 
appropriately called it. All the early hours of the 
day saw the innumerable caravan filing by the 
front gate on foot, on horseback, by wagon loads, in 
smart buggies, by twos and threes and crowds, laden 
with hampers of prepared food or thriftlessly depend- 
ing upon a possible repetition of the miracle of the 
loaves and fishes. Crying babies and whistling boys, 
important looking matrons and shame-faced girls who 
stole sheepish sidewise glances at Miss Flo as she sat 
on the gallery, pale and dainty and pretty, amused at 
the proprietary interest she felt in a large proportion 
of the gorgeous costumes that were flaunted before 
her eyes on that bright spring morning, and sordidly 
making a mental calculation of the sum total of this 
year's '' protracted meeting business." That was 
what she called it. 

It was not an unpicturesque sight, down there on 
the side of the creek, where the crowd finally settled 
after swarming. The pale green slopes of the banks 
just fairly clothed with spring verdure, with the trees 
clustering close to the water's edge, furnished a pleas- 
ant background for the restless mass of dark faces 
and brilliantly clad forms. A little way back was 
pitched the white tent, where the exhausted shouters 



AIISS FLO'S HARVEST. 343 

were to be ^' toted," dripping from immersion, by Jeff 
and his coadjutors. Further back still, with Aunt 
Minerva in command, a busy brigade was spreading 
the contents of the hampers on the cotton sheets that 
were spread upon the grass to receive them, but such 
mundane duties were soon merged in the higher 
interest of the baptizing. Grouped on the low bridge 
the preacher and the subjects for immersion made an 
effective tableau. The people on the gallery could 
not distinguish words, but they knew from the wild 
waving of his long arms, and the wilder swaying of 
the immense throng, and the swelling of the weird 
wailing of the singers, and the moaning and the 
groaning, that the exhorter was under full headway, 
and that the frenzy was upon them. 

Who would dare make it a matter of jest or ridi- 
cule ? They were under the spell of a terrible earn- 
estness. For the time being they were worshipers. 
Ignorantly but zealously they worshiped, in their 
uncontrolled boisterous fashion. While that frenzy 
endured the furbelows that had engaged their simple 
imaginations for weeks beforehand sank suddenly into 
their proper insignificance. The wrong-doing that 
was voluntarily and tremblingly confessed out there 
under the blue of the sky and the tender green of the 
over-arching trees was the only real and awful thing 
in life. While the spell of that sonorous voice was 
upon them, they repented them truly and humbly of 
all their sins of omission and commission. Perhaps 
conscience even smote some of them with sharp regret 
for their ill-gotten contributions to the collation they 
would placidly help to consume in the calmer after 



344 MISS FLO'S HARVEST, 

hours. For the time being repentance was genuine 
and remorse was keen. What would you of a herd 
of overgrown, untaught children, blind followers of 
blind leaders, swayed by their emotions, all uncon- 
scious of their own possession of any better guide 
than impulse ? 

But it was neither with such sage moral reflections 
as these, nor with the swaying, shouting, hysterical 
crowd down there on the pebbly banks of the creek, 
that Miss Flo's eyes or mind were long engaged. 
She alone had seen a buggy driven out of the woods 
on the other side of the creek, had seen its driver 
glance down at the impedimenta on the bridge, and 
then respectfully settle himself to wait for an oppor- 
tunity to cross it. His attitude was one of absolute 
patience. It was Larry Stacy ! 

No one ever crossed that bridge who was not com- 
ing straight up to the house where Miss Flo sat with 
hands rigidly folded in her lap and her strained eyes 
gazing across at the buggy on the opposite side. He 
had turned the horse's head slightly, so as not to 
seem to be an idle spectator of the excited scene 
before him. And there he stayed until the last violent 
splash had been taken in the clear waters of the creek, 
and the last soaked convert had been " toted" to the 
tent by Jeff in the Colonel's coat, and the over- 
wrought crowd had swayed away from the bridge to- 
wards the white cloths on the grass, where it promptly 
dissolved into so many hungry, grasping, every-day 
atoms. Then, with a slight touch of the whip on his 
horse's flanks, Larry Stacy headed him toward the 
bridge, and drove straight to the Colonel's front gate. 



MISS FLO'S HARVEST. 345 

The family, all but Miss Flo, recognized him with 
a start of surprise. '^ Larry Stacy ! what's up ? " the 
Colonel said under his breath before going quickly 
into the hall for his hat, that he might help his crip- 
pled neighbor from the buggy at the gate. 

Miss Flo was ''up," and gone too, by the time the 
two men reached the front steps. She mentally called 
herself no end of absurd names as she rushed through 
the hall to gain the shelter of the darkened parlor, 
but she simply could not sit there with Larry Stacy in 
front of her, maimed, wounded, and oh ! so much 
older looking. It was barbarous of him driving there 
in that fashion. She supposed her selling that coat 
to Jeff was at the bottom of it. Yes, her selling that 
to Jeff was at the bottom of it. She heard Larry ask 
pointedly for her, in such a strange voice. She could 
have fancied it trembled if there had been any reason 
in such an idea. 

He walked straight past them all and came there 
to her, where she sat in the cool dark parlor, trem- 
bling, she scarcely knew why. She rose to meet him 
and asked him to be seated with admirable composure, 
for which she took great credit to herself, but instead 
he stood up in front of her and held out an open let- 
ter, such an old, dusty, rumpled-looking letter as it 
was, too, and said what he had to say in a very few 
abrupt words. 

" Miss Florence, before I came back to the planta- 
tion after the war, indeed, when I was in hospital hav- 
ing this attachment fixed " (touching his wooden leg) 
" I wrote a letter to you telling you I had always 
meant to ask you to be my wife, that I loved you, but 



346 MISS FLO'S HARVEST. 

felt, in my crippled state, it was worse than audacious 
to address you as a lover. I asked you in that letter 
to write to me if you had any thing kind to say to me, 
but that if you had not, to leave me unanswered and 
I should know what it meant. I never got any answer 
to that letter, and I thought I knew what it meant- 
But last night Jeff brought me this. He told me he 
found it in the lining of a coat he had — had — gotten 
over here. Read it, please. It's a little over-due, 
only about four years, but I would like to know how 
you would have answered it if you had ever read 
it. I know you haven't, because the seal is un- 
broken." 

He held it out to her. You could have heard his 
heart beat while he stood there waiting for her to read 
that dusty old letter from beginning to end. How 
deliberate she was, and how intensely quiet her voice 
was as she asked : 

" If you could change the date of that letter to 
to-day, would you write it just the same ? " 

" Just the same," he answered huskily. 

Then two soft cool hands went out to him in the 
darkened parlor, and with a tender cooing sound he 
heard himself called " Poor Larry ; poor, dear, lonely 
Larry," in tones that sent the blood in a glad torrent 
from his heart to his face, and made the scar on his 
brave face gleam redly for a second. 

And now when Miss Flo makes her mental calcula- 
tion anent the profits of that year's protracted meet- 
ing, the old coat she sold Jeff possessessuch a marvel- 
ous faculty of outweighing every thing on earth that 



MISS FLO'S HARVEST, 347 

she gives the sum up. The only unhappy and remorse- 
ful person to be found at Pebbly Creek now is the 
Colonel, whose habitual carelessness was at the bottom 
of so cruel and prolonged a separation. 



CHAPTER XXV. 



AN OLD ROMAN. 



THE fact that he was called " Judge," and so ad- 
dressed, and so referred to in the local news- 
papers, does not indicate that he had ever held any 
judicial position in his county, or that he had any 
aspirations toward the bench ; so far from such being 
the case, he looked upon counselors-at-law, recorders, 
judges, in short, all of their kind, with a sort of lenient 
pity as a lot of poor devils who had to trim their sails 
to accomrmodate every fickle popular breeze and 
adjust their principles to the exigencies of their 
cases. 

Such a necessity, or rather his conception of such a 
necessity alone, would have militated fatally against 
the Judge's ever adopting the legal profession, 
for " principle " was the watchword of his life, and it 
was in his readiness to make any and every sacrifice 
for it that he resembled the old Roman he has been 
likened to. His bearing was senatorial, so was his 
flowing white beard. Given a toga and a fiercer 
looking nose, and the Judge might have posed pic- 
turesquely for the noblest Roman of them all ; might 
still, in fact, though it would be a mutilated Roman, 
with an armless sleeve. 



AN OLD ROMAN, 349 

On a grassy slope in the outskirts of a sleepy little 

town in County, Mississippi, stands a house 

plainly visible to passers-by in the road. Its lawn 
slopes greenly away from it on three sides, guiltless 
of parterre or cultivation of any sort. An unpainted 
picket fence, afflicted with chronic weakness, sur- 
rounds this immense grassy expanse, into which is 
let at one corner, in an irrelevant sort of fashion, a 
heavy gate, which gapes as widely to let a baby 
through as it does for an express wagon. By which 
you will perceive the gates around the Judge's 
demesne are not built on the scientific principles that 
Newton applied to the holes cut under his door for 
the accommodation of his cats — a big one for the cat 
and a little one for the kitten. On the apex of this 
lawn stands a gray, unpainted frame house, with big 
windows, and doors that let in no end of light and 
sunshine in summer and an equally unlimited amount 
of cold draught in winter. There is a dormer room 
over the big-pillared front portico, and from time 
immemorial there has been just one pane of glass out 
of the sash in that window. In the railing about the 
portico there has also been just one baluster missing 
for along time. Neither the absent pane of glass nor 
the missing baluster affected the peace and comfort 
of the family to any great extent, until a strolling 
photographer stopped in front of the lawn, and point- 
ing his instrument at the old gray house, without a 
moment's warning, perpetuated these deficiencies, but 
made such a pretty picture of the old house, with 
its dark conical cedars peeping around one gable 
end, and its three grand old oaks outlining the 



35° AN OLD ROMAN. 

crumbling back terrace, that, in spite of the dread- 
ful permanence thus given to the staring vacancy 
in the dormer window and the toothless rail below, the 
Judge's famil}'- prize this memento of the old home- 
stead above every thing. 

If the picture could have taken in the two rose- 
bushes that have survived the war, one a mam- 
moth red monthly that claims more territory from 
the grassy lawn every year, the other a '' sunset " 
rose that shades its golden and pink petals in a 
fragant shower in the very earliest spring-time, it 
would have been prettier. These two roses exemplify 
the survival of the fittest. Before the war the gray 
house could not be seen from the road at all. The 
grassy lawn was then a garden, kept sightly by a 
Scotch gardener who held sway over it, and over a 
tiny little vine-wreathed cottage in the vegetable 
garden below the terraces, where the three ragged- 
topped oaks now stand. 

Then, when the Judge's family grouped itself 
about the low, broad stuccoed front steps, they 
only knew when vehicles were passing by the 
clouds of dust that rose over the tall heads of the 
jessamines and azaleas and sweet olives and '' burn- 
ing bushes " that shut them in, and by the soft 
rumble of dust-smothered wheels. But there came 
a day when military necessity sent axes ringing and 
plows upturning and shovels desecrating the lovely 
grounds, and ugly earthworks, bristling with black- 
mouthed cannon, took the places of the sweet olives 
and the jessamines. The earthworks have been 
leveled long ago and only a green welt here and 



AN OLD ROM AM. 35 1. 

there on the lawn tells where they used to be, show- 
ing like scars that have rudely healed over ; but it is 
because the family hold in such tender reverence the 
old-time glories of the place, and see its sharp con- 
trasts so plainly, that such isolated defects as that 
missing pane of glass and lacking baluster fail of due 
impressiveness. 

This gray house is where the Judge lived, really 
lived. Over in Louisiana and up in Arkansas 
there were three plantations and many slaves that 
called him master, but the slaves and the plantations 
were all tributary to the home " in the hills " (as Mis- 
sissippi lands were always called, in contradistinction 
to Louisiana swamps). 

Lidependently of that great wealth which gives 
a man prominence in any and every locality, the 
Judge's position in his own neighborhood was 
an enviable one. His judgment was beyond ques- 
tion on the differing grades of cotton or the advisa- 
bility of mixed crops, and his prophecies con- 
cerning the probabilities of each season were re- 
ceived with profound consideration. Young men 
rather appreciated the privilege of saying, '•' Judge 
Strong remarked to me the other day," etc.; it was 
indicative of access, you see, to one of the most 
potent personalities in the county. As a financier he 
excelled, and his views, obtained either directly or in- 
directly, decided the final disposition of many thou- 
sands of dollars among his own neighbors. Not that he 
aspired to leadership of any sort. No man ever lived 
who was more absolutely content to mind his own 
business ; but he had had prominence thrust upon 



352 AN OLD ROMAN. 

him, and he accepted it with the reserved dignity 
that was characteristic of him in all things. Perhaps 
the fact that he never had aspired to this prominence, 
but that it had been a voluntary tribute, stood him in 
good stead when he was called on to test the fickle- 
ness of popular opinion, as he was when his state 
came to secede. It was then that he appreciated 
popularity at its true worth. 

The chief impetus and momentum of the secession 
movement was drawn, in its earliest days, from the 
heated blood of restless young spirits, alert to perceive 
indignity and resent injury, whether real or imagin- 
ary. There could be but one course of action open to 
Southerners of true mettle. He who hesitated was 
lost. Unfortunately so few hesitated that those who 
did became the immediate marks for a most undesir- 
able sort of conspicuity. Whosoever was not for the 
secession of a State was against the true interest of 
its people. 

It was in those early turbulent days that people 
began to consider the Judge's position with inves- 
tigating curiosity. He had apparently assumed an 
attitude of aloofness that laid him open to the dark 
suspicion of being a Union man. Somebody made 
cautious note of the fact that he was not in attendance 
at the enthusiastic mass meeting, held in the 
Methodist church, because it was the biggest building 
in town, to indorse South Carolina's impetuosity in 
going out ; somebod)'' else perceived that it was with 
the lenient indulgence of senility to infancy that he 
looked on calmly at the frantic industry with which 
the boys fell to drilling, marching through town at all 



AN OLD ROMAN. 353 

hours of the day with their bayonets criss-crossing 
each other Hke poorly planted pea-sticks ; one well 
versed in the legislation of the county recalled to mind 
how the Judge's oldest son, in the legislative halls of 
the State, had opposed and defeated what was called 
the " Free Negro Bill," which bore somewhat heavily 
on the colored population so unfortunate as not to 
own a master. 

Plainly a strong case was making against the 
Judge, and people no longer deferred respectfully 
to his opinion on any subject. Suspicion culminated 
on the day that Mississippi seceded. There was 
a tremendous fanfare over it that drew nearly all 
the town into the vortex of the wildest excite- 
ment ; but the Judge, sitting at home, shielded from 
unfriendly observation by the sheltering roses and 
vines in his shrub-crowded garden, only dropped 
his head upon his breast until his long white beard 
touched the watch-fob at his waist and sighed. The 
next day he stood on the high bluff that overlooked 
the river, mute, while the surging crowd was clamor- 
ing over the majestic salutes the great incoming 
steamers, just up from New Orleans, were making 
with flags and cannon, curving and circling around 
there below the little town set on a hill, at a great 
rate, by way of commending her for following the 
lead of her sister States, and "going out." 

The Judge's voice was not heard in a single huzza ; 
his hat remained immovable on his senatorial head, 
and no blue cockade adorned the lapel of his broad- 
cloth coat. The flag that was waving gayly out there 
at the steamer's masthead was a new flag to him. He 



354 AN OLD ROMAN. 

would have to learn how to love it. The cannon that 
was firing those noisy, harmless salutes would soon be 
belching death and destruction over the land beloved. 
The land he loved extended from Maine to Florida 
and stretched from ocean to ocean. 

If he could have prevented this rashness, he would 
have done so, but his voice had not been asked 
in the councils that had impetuously legislated his 
State out of the Union. As he had not been able 
to raise it in warning, it should not now be heard 
in condemnation of the inevitable. They knew 
not what they had done, that excited, eager, rash 
few who had decided on this tremendous step ! 
Now, indeed, there was but one course left for them 
all to pursue. He had never yet shrunk from a 
cleaVly defined duty ; he would not now. He had 
been too shrewd an observer of the trend of events 
not to feel convinced that there was hot and hard 
work ahead for them all. Of course, the boys, his 
boys, would go. There'd be no keeping them at 
home. But a bitter and silent protest was in his heart 
against the folly of it all. 

Of course the boys went, his boys, both of them. 
People said that the Judge's mute clinging to the* 
disrupted Union must be over-looked, since he 
gave freely of his substance at every demand of 
the new Government and put no obstacles in the 
way of his two sons going off as cavalrymen. But 
he was quite aware that he was viewed with dis- 
favor in his own town, and as hot blood and rapid 
resentment were the controlling elements in every dis- 
cussion that came to the surface in those days, more 



AN OLD ROMAN. 355 

and more he withdrew to the seclusion of the sheltered 
home, too dignified to utter audible lament over the 
folly of his people, too keen-sighted to rejoice with 
them in the time of their uncalculating exultation. 

Occupation by its enemies of the little town upon 
the hill was a mere question of time after the fall of 
New Orleans. People said (that was as soon as the 
Federalists got possession of the town) that they sup- 
posed " now Judge Strong would be happy," and they 
looked to see him ^' hobnob " with the General in 
command. His Union sentiments would stand him in 
good part now. It quite looked as if all the malicious 
prophecies of the people, who simply did not under- 
stand him tJieii^ were about to be fulfilled, when the 
General in command was seen driving to his head- 
quarters in the Strong carriage, with the Strongs* 
splendid bays drawing it, and driven by the Strongs' 
driver. " Of course the Judge must have proffered 
it." They had yet to learn the nature of a military 
requisition. 

The last feather was added when it was discov- 
ered that the Strong mansion was to be head- 
quarters and the town was to be converted into a 
military post. The unjust disaffection of his neigh- 
bors would have melted into remorse quicker than it 
did if they could have been eye-witnesses to the 
Judge's reception of this news. It was in a curt note 
from the Adjutant-General stating that the Strong 
house offered the best position for head-quarters, and 
the Judge and his family would please consider them- 
selves restricted to the second story from date of the 
succeeding day. 



35^ AN OLD ROMAN. 

He looked across the breakfast-table, where they 
were all sitting when this order came to him, at 
the wife who had shared his good fortune and his 
bad fortune, and had been his wise and gentle privy- 
councilor for nearly forty years. Her hair was al- 
most as white as his beard ; her spirit quite as daunt- 
less as his own. She was delicate and dainty, and had 
never known the rough side of life through all those 
prosperous years. He looked at the girls — such 
spirited, outspoken little rebels as they were ! Should 
they be made prisoners of in their own flower-begirt 
home ? It was easy enough to dispose of himself, but 
what of them ? Endurance had reached its limit. 
He could go into the army. He would not count for 
much, but better there than biding under the same 
roof with the foe. The women must go up to one of 
the plantations. 

Yes, he and his privy-councilor agreed it should be 
so. They would retire to the upper story just long 
enough to prepare themselves for the tiresome trip to 
the dreary plantations. They wished they had left 
even sooner, when they saw the cruel plows driving 
deep gashes through the shrubbery out there, and 
gazed down from their imprisonment, as they called 
it, on the army of miners and sappers who speedily 
converted their rose gardens and their myrtle avenues 
into hideous earthworks, felling their cherished shade- 
trees with a heartlessness that seemed monstrous to 
them, all unused as they were to the stern necessity 
that controls military movements. They could not 
take an impersonal view of any thing that plowed so 
deeply into their own souls. 



AN OLD ROMAN. 357 

Even the Judge ceased to reason and began 
to burn with a sense of vindictiveness. Perhaps, 
after all, the Union wherein such atrocities were 
possible was as well broken as preserved. Whether 
it was or not, because he had failed to preserve it 
intact was no reason why he should submit to be 
trampled upon like a worm. Thus slowly, but inevit- 
ably, the Judge was forced to the point where he must 
fire on the old flag that he had loved loyally and long. 
He would join the army as a private in an infantry 
company. " No fol-de-rol " for him. He hated the 
whole business. But he held a forced hand. (In his 
younger days the Judge had been known occasionally 
to take a hand at poker, just to kill time while running 
down to the city, and its phraseology came handily at 
times.) The quicker he placed the women in safety 
on the plantation in Arkansas, the quicker he would 
be in position to fight off the accumulating choler that 
threatened him with apoplexy. 

He borrowed his own carriage and horses to convey 
him and his family to the river-bank, where they would 
take skiffs. It looked a trifle like a funeral procession 
as the women, veiled and weeping, filed solemnly down 
the steps and took their places in the waiting carriage. 
The Judge followed them in unsmiling dignity. They 
were going into exile. Their borrowed driver slammed 
the carriage door upon them and mounted to the box 
with a solemn '^ Git up " to his horses. Some one halted 
him from the interior of the house. The hurried step 
of a spurred boot sounded along the big central hall — 
and then, standing there with bared head before them, 
was the young officer upon whose unwilling hands 



35 8 AN OLD ROMAN. 

the odium of this ejectment had been thrust. "With a 
quick military salute to the veiled women, he turned 
his troubled eyes upon the Judge, sitting sternly erect 
upon the front seat. He held in one hand a bird's 
cage, in the other a basket of blooming hyacinths 
torn up by the roots. He knew they all hated him, 
and it was hard to say what he wanted just then to 
say to them. The hot blood mounted high up to the 
white temples that were in such sharp contrast to his 
sun-burned cheeks. He stammered out his errand 
presently, awkwardly enough: *' I brought .these, 
thinking the ladies might want to set them out some- 
where else," indicating the hyacinths, "and this " — 
the bird cage — '^ supposing it had been forgotten." 

" Present them to the General in command with my 
respects," said the Judge's wife in her most patriotic 
tones, " and tell him, if there is.any thing more we can 
surrender for his comfort, we hope he will not be too 
modest to indicate it." 

"Oh, mamma, that is cruel." A girl's veil was 
thrown back and a pair of little hands were held out 
for the hyacinths. " It was good of you to think of 
this. The bird would be in our way. It's mine. I 
give it to you. These I will take, thank you." Then 
they were gone, and he had nothing but a memory 
left, and a very inconvenient piece of army baggage 
on hand. But never was bird or beast better cared 
for than that useless little yellow warbler. 

Rumors came back, after long months, that the 
Judge was actually in the army ; that he was a foot- 
soldier, and that nothing angered him more fiercely than 
to have his officers in command remit any duty because 



AN OLD ROMAN. 359 

of his age or position. He would and must share 
alike with the humblest soldier in the ranks. He went 
about his camp duties more like an ascetic doing pre- 
scribed penance than a soldier delighting in the pros- 
pective fray. Marvelous stories were afloat concern- 
ing his powers of endurance — how, when his turn 
came to stand sentinel, neither heat nor cold nor wind 
nor rain deterred him from it ; how he, who had fared 
sumptuously and been clothed in fine raiment, ate his 
inadequate rations of hard-tack and rancid bacon with 
a degree of fortitude that made him an absolute 
inspiration to the rest of the camp, and how he, who 
had been obsequiously tended by fleet-footed slaves, 
now burnished his own bayonet and cooked his own 
rations with stoical indifference to the luxurious side 
of life. 

It was only in the hours of relaxed camp dis- 
cipline that a vestige of his former self reappeared. 
Then he withdrew into his shell. There was no prin- 
ciple involved in being hail-fellow-well-met with his 
comrades in arms, and it was only when under arms 
that he recognized any comradeship ; hence '' Old 
Strong " was not popular. And then public senti- 
ment veered once more. It is not in war times alone 
that public sentiment has a good deal in common with 
the weather cock. It had begun to veer slowly as 
soon as news had come of the Judge's hardy fortitude 
in the ranks ; it went around with a swirl when the 
last and greatest indignity was put upon the beautiful 
home of the Strongs by its being turned into an asylum 
for colored orphans. Any thing but that ! 

After all, the hideous fortifications that had plowed 



360 AN OLD ROMAN. 

up in a day the artistic work of years had been point- 
less, for the garrison had been removed, the little town 
being left to its fate under the surveillance of a provost- 
marshal and his corps. It was quite all the occasion 
demanded. And now the neighbors, looking over at 
the Strong house from their own unmolested premises, 
could see little darkies swarming over the already 
grass-grown fortifications, and the stuccoed steps grew 
dark with them of evenings, and the sound of their 
boisterous mirth was an offense to the air it floated 
upon. Truly more than seven devils had entered in 
and taken possession. 

The news of it got to the Judge somehow, just on 
the eve of battle. He sat over his camp-fire moodily 
that night thinking with bitterness of soul over all 
that had overtaken him. His wife and his daughters 
— left to the tender mercies of freed slaves — himself 
denied even the poor solace of communication from a 
distance. His sons — dead or alive ? Who knew. One 
in Virginia, the other' in the trans-Mississippi depart- 
ment. His home — desecrated, defiled, wrecked. Him- 
self — They say the Judge fought like a tiger the next 
day, but at its close he lay wounded, exhausted, spent. 
As a paroled and armless exempt, he found his way 
back to the plantation in Arkansas and to the sooth- 
ing ministrations of wife and children. 

People had got accustomed, if not reconciled, to 
the absence of the Strongs and the presence of the 
little darkey orphans in their old home by the time the 
war had been over a year, and there was yet no sign 
of their return. It was said Mrs. Strong had vowed 
she would never sleep under her desecrated roof 



AN OLD ROMAN. 361 

again ; when suddenly the old house underwent an- 
other transformation scene. The little darkies filed 
out and plasterers and painters and carpenters filed 
in. Such a sweeping and garnishing and purifying 
as it did undergo. Nothing but the outer walls seemed 
to remain undisturbed, and the white debris of plaster 
of Paris flew in clouds from every window in the 
house. Outside, there on the lawn, another army of 
men were leveling the earthworks and sodding the 
scarred yard over as fast as fast could be. People 
looked on in wonder. Could it be that the Judge had 
come out of it all with his pockets full of money? 
The evident signs of prosperity about the old Strong 
house were in imminent danger of making the neigh- 
bors forget that armless sleeve up on the plantation 
in Arkansas and all the Judge's service to his own 
side, when it transpired that the Strong house was 
confiscated property and could only be recovered by 
the Judge's taking the oath. 

So then it was not the Judge's money that was 
doing all that work of renovation. Public curi- 
osity rose to the pitch of torture. There was a 
'^boss" workman there who knew all about it, of 
course, but he was terribly close-mouthed. Industri- 
ous research traced all this activity to a quiet gentle- 
man who had settled in the town as a lawyer almost 
immediately after the cessation of hostilities, but no 
one could say authoritatively that it was he. He was 
very quiet and unobtrusive ; but when pressed with 
questions, said the climate of the South suited him 
much better than his own. He made no secret of the 
fact that he had first come to this little town as the 



362 AN OLD ROMAN. 

Adjutant-General to the General in command. He 
was kind and courteous, and immensely helpful in 
those darkly bewildering days that followed upon 
defeat. His little office in town was one of the bright- 
est spots in it. Some even scoffed at the idea of a 
man who could keep two rose-bushes flourishing in 
tubs in the sunny strip of ground behind his office, 
and a canary bird swaying in a gilt cage, all for his 
own entertainment, having any thing in him to recom- 
mend him as a legal adviser. One of the roses was a 
red monthly and the other a sunset rose with golden 
and pink petals, and the lawyer cared for them both 
with tender impartiality. 

AVhy should the Judge not take the oath ? What 
trespass had he committed in his heart, when, driven 
into a corner, he had turned at bay and fought for the 
home that sheltered his offspring as any other animal 
would have done ? What humiliation was involved in 
vowing allegiance to the old flag, his first, best love 
and last love, if not his only one ? Why should he 
skulk through the remaining days of his life, because 
by the irrevocable arbitrament of arms he had been 
proven to have espoused the wrong side ? Why 
should he shrink from renewing his vows to a gov- 
ernment whose excellence he had never ques- 
tioned? 

These were the arguments he advanced very timidly 
within the sacred precincts of his own family circle, to 
the wife and the daughters who had gone into exile 
with him. The boys were still missing. One slept in 
a nameless grave near Shreveport ; the other had car- 
ried his hotly-chafed spirit to the cooling atmosphere 



AN OLD ROMAN. 363 

of Honduras. The Union was preserved ; but he 
hated it — then. 

The Judge's determination to take the oath was 
not received favorably. It was a complete sur- 
render. That is what a woman can never bring 
herself to — acknowledging openly that she is van- 
quished. She may be vanquished, and she may know 
that she is vanquished, and she may, furthermore, know 
that you know she knows it, but it is the putting it 
frankly into words that is gall and wormwood. That was 
why the Judge knew beforehand pretty much what to 
expect. He quailed before the indignant protests 
that were hurled at his defenseless head. It took a 
great deal to make Judge Strong quail, but it took 
still more to make him swerve from the course marked 
out by conscience. 

He took the oath and was duly pardoned and rein- 
stated in all his forfeited rights of citizenship, after 
which there was no let nor hindrance to their return- 
ing to the house in the hills, though, of course, Mrs. 
Strong declared plaintively it would '' never be like 
home again." 

The condition in which they found the premises 
was a matter of more amazement to the Strongs than 
it had been to their neighbors. There was not one 
sign left of the enemy's occupation but the grassy 
welts on the lawn and the free sweep of exposure to 
the public road, which at first was a sore trial to the 
nerves of the whole family. The Judge made it his 
business at once to begin sifting the mystery of this 
unfathered beneficence to him and his. A little bird 
gave him the right clew, 



364 AN OLD ROMAN. 

They had been settled in the old house but a few 
days when two enormous tubs, each containing a 
thrifty rose-bush, and a glittering gilt Chinese pagoda 
of a bird's cage, containing a useless little yellow war- 
bler, were added to their effects. These were dumped 
abruptly down upon the portico with no message of 
any sort. A tag was fastened to each rose-bush, on 
which was written : " Survival of the fittest." The 
bird gave them the clew. 

''Why did you do all this for me?" the Judge 
asked, sitting face to face with the new lawyer, whom 
he had unearthed as his benefactor. 

'' I don't know that I did do it for you," the ex-ad- 
jutant said, his eyes wandering from force of habit to 
where the bird's cage had swung, and the rose-trees 
had bloomed behind the little office. 

" For whom then ? " 

" For your daughter — the one that lifted her veil 
and remembered to be kind and just to her enemy, 
even in the sharp hour of her own misery. God 
does not make such women as that every day, and 
some time, when the soreness has worn itself 
out of her heart and yours, I mean to ask her to be 
my wife. Not yet though. I bide my time." 

It is safe to conclude that the soreness was worn 
out of every body's heart before the day when that 
strolling photographer sprung his camera on the old 
Strong house, when the family were all grouped on 
the stuccoed steps, for among the blurry forms on the 
steps is the ex-adjutant's. He is sitting quite close to 
the Judge's youngest daughter, and if you look at the 
picture through a magnifying-glass, you can see that 



AN OLD ROMAN. 3^5 

her fingers are clasped in his, though the petals of a 
handful of " sunset " roses almost hide them. The ex- 
adjutant's only regret connected with the picture is 
that he allowed the Judge to stay his renovating hand 
before all the windows were reglazed and all the 
missing balusters supplied. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

BLIND JO AND THE NEW PEOPLE. 

THE " folks " on the Bendemma plantation could 
predict blind Jo's movements from day to day 
in the spring season with as much positiveness as the 
skilled astronomer brings to bear upon the movements 
of the celestial bodies. They called him " 01 Reg'lar." 

There was nothing about blind Jo's personality to 
suggest this line of comparison. He was a terrestrial 
body of the most pronounced type, of the earth earthy, 
from the crown of the brimless straw wreck, which 
(retaining its position on the back of his head in 
obedience to some unexplained law of cohesion) was a 
mere sarcastic suggestion of a hat, down to the yawn- 
ing toes of his huge " stoga " boots, which had trodden 
a solid pathway in the soft dirt of the road that led 
from his cabin down to the cool dark waters of the 
bayou where the " logger-head " and the snapping- 
turtles sunned them.selves on the mossy logs, and the 
speckled sun-perch and the striped bass yielded up 
their happy lives for blind Jo's benefit. 

No king on his throne was happier than blind Jo 
when the soft south winds began to blow, and the 
pecans hung out their pale green silk tassels, and the 
breath of the sweet-gum floated as incense to his nos- 



BLIND JO AND THE NEW PEOPLE. 367 

trils. For with the springing of the grass and the 
bursting of the buds his own hour of emancipation 
drew on apace, and no enamoured lover of Nature 
ever awaited her vernal awakening with more eager- 
ness than did blind Jo, whose eyelids were closed 
forever to all her witchery of form and color. 

During the winter Jo hibernated in a corner of the 
fireplace in Melindy's cabin, where his daily dole of 
pork and corn bread was grudgingly dispensed by 
Melindy's reluctant hand, and he was made to remem- 
ber that he was but a cumberer of the earth. When 
blind Jo emerged from the gloom of Melindy's cabin 
to the brightness and the lightness of the outside 
world, the folks knew that the fish were biting and 
that for some months to come Jo would be an inde- 
pendent merchant, trading in the fruits of his own 
industry for the luxuries of tobacco and whisky, that 
were not included in Melindy's daily dole. This pro- 
spective independence makes Jo straighten himself up 
somewhat proudly, as he passes from under the low- 
browed cabin door and turns his eager steps toward 
the bayou where the tangled vines of the fox-grapes 
and the muscadines festoon the banks. 

Jo had a satellite — a small, meager, ebony-hued 
attendant, whose shabbiness was an intensified repro- 
duction of Jo's own. It was Isham, the youngest of 
Melindy's " ten." Circumstances had conspired to 
limit Isham's choice of a career in life. But he bore 
circumstances no grudge. He too hibernated in the 
winter, with occasional interruptions for the purpose 
of replenishing the wood fire or drawing a bucket of 
water out of the barrels that stood under the guttered 



368 BLIND JO AND THE NEW PEOPLE. 

eaves. He too rejoiced in the coming of the spring, 
for then he spent the long deliciously thriftless days 
down on the bayou's bank, baiting blind Jo's hooks, 
and squatting immovably at his heels to watch for the 
tremulous moment when the painted cork on blind 
Jo's line should bob vivaciously enough to warrant a 
view-halloo. Then Isham's excited " Dar he, gr'daddy; 
cotch 'm ! " would make the welkin ring, and blind Jo, 
obedient to the shout, would send his long line 
whizzing through the air, perhaps with a glittering 
" catch " reflecting the sun's rays on iridescent scales, 
perhaps with a ragged remnant of water-bleached red- 
worm only. 

It would take but a fraction of a second to decide 
whether Isham should be made a participator in 
his chief's triumph, or the recipient of a swift 
back-handed " cuff " in punishment for his misdirected 
zeal. Practice did not make perfect in Isham's case, 
and his judgment on the subject of bites is still open 
to the charge of fallibiHty. 

In the early stages of his existence as a supple- 
ment to his grandfather, Isham, in the exuberance 
of youthful spirits, was much given to raising false 
hopes in the blind fisher's breast, but the pains and 
penalties of this innocent pastime proving largely in 
excess of the amount of fun extracted therefrom, he 
learned how to sit like a hideous little pop-eyed 
heathen idol, in wooden immobility, with his gaze glued 
to the spot of color on the dark bosom of the bayou 
that told where Jo's hook had gone down until the 
moment for legitimate action arrived. Sometimes 
Nature would assert herself, and Isham's ebony lids 



BLIND JO AND THE NEW PEOPLE. 3^9 

would close tightly over the strained black and white 
ivory balls that had so little speculation in them, but his 
slumber was noiseless and blind Jo's patience infinite. 

It was easy to be patient out there, under the 
broad skies that gave him such a sense of 
roominess ; with the muscadine vines swaying gently 
over his head under the weight of a tuneful mocking- 
bird ; with the drowsy tones of the cicadas punctuating 
the stillness ; with an occasional splash of a startled 
turtle dropping from its mossy perch into the ruffled 
waters ; with the chatter of the blackbirds floating to 
him from the freshly- plowed fields just across the 
bayou there ; with the lazy call of the distant plow- 
man to his lazier team, carrying him back for a fleet 
while to the time when he, too, had his hand upon the 
plow — all going to make up such a pleasantly peace- 
ful contrast to Melindy's sharp tirades, to the yelping 
curs and the fretting children back there in the cabin 
he had escaped from. 

Sitting there in the bow of a stranded skiff whose 
hull still reflects red and green patches of faded splen- 
dor in the waters that lap its sunken sides, with the 
gray beards of the Spanish moss drooping about his 
massive shoulders from the low-growing branches of 
the water oaks that line the bayou, his bright ban- 
danna handkerchief knotted loosely about his colum- 
nar bronze throat, and his patient hands clasped about 
the long cane pole he had groped for through the 
brake ; blind Jo attracted the attention of one of the 
new people of the big house who called himself an 
artist, and from the isolation of the fishing days, when 
Isham and the mocking-birds peopled all his world, 



370 BLIND JO AND THE NEW PEOPLE. 

he was suddenly exalted to the position of a model 
and a local hero. 

He was not fond of the new people. It would have 
been incompatible with his loyalty to his own " w'ite 
folks " to have cultivated a fondness for them. He 
was nobody but old blind Jo to the new folks. He 
had been a personage of importance in the days when 
" or Mars' " and " 01' Miss " had reigned royally at 
the big house. Perhaps change of allegiance would 
have been less difficult if he hadn't known just how 
the place had passed into the new people's possession. 
He was glad the ol' folks had been laid away under 
the jessamine bushes in the garden before " Mars' 
Ben " had gotten things into such a snarl that the 
place had passed into the hands of the commission 
merchants. Yes, the new people were New Orleans 
folks, and Bendemma, v/ith all its chattels, including 
blind Jo himself, belonged to the new people. 

He didn't care much for Mars' Ben's downfall — he'd 
brought it all on himself. But Miss Jinny ! Miss Jinny's 
fate sat heavily on blind Jo's heart. He didn't even 
know where the child was. The folks in the quarters 
told him she was teaching school at the Colonel's. It 
made blind Jo hate the new people worse than ever 
to think they could eject Miss Jinny from the house 
she was born in, and set her to teaching school for a 
living. 

He never went up to the big house now. He 
used to go every night. If it was winter time, he 
would "tote " the cut fire-wood from the wood-pile to 
the back gallery and pile it up where it would be 
handy for the house-folks next day before taking his 



BLIND JO AND THE NEW PEOPLE. 37 1 

Stand, hat in hand, in the doorway of 01' Miss's bed- 
room for a few moments of social intercourse. He 
was the " driver " in those days and acted as a sort of 
subaltern to the overseer. If it was summer, it was 
his privilege to sit humbly on the lowest step of the 
front gallery and imbibe family matters or local items 
from the group clustered above him on the cool, dark 
veranda. No one was afraid to talk before Jo. He 
was of them as well as with them. Their troubles 
were his troubles, their comforts his. 

" W'ite folks sot a heap a sto' by ol' Jo in dem days." 
That was blind Jo's proudest boast, and when the fish 
were biting well, and his good-humor must needs find 
vocal vent, he generally effervesced in a reminiscent 
vein, and tried to hand the memory of those happy 
days down to his grandson as a proud legacy. 

It was chance that first brought blind Jo and the 
new people into contact. He was of too little worth in 
those days to be enrolled among the workers, so he 
was easily lost sight of. He might have been trans- 
ferred to the realms of art without even time for a pro- 
test had not Isham suddenly awakened from one of 
his stolen cat-naps to find a camera pointed directly 
at blind Jo from the other side of the bayou, and given 
a yell of warning so full of terror that blind Jo rashly 
concluded a "painter" was upon them, and tumbled 
incontinently into the water, preferring death by 
drowning to the slower process of mastication by a 
panther. 

Isham fled, ignominously leaving the blind fisher- 
man to his fate. Jo's fate was to flounder about 
in the bayou, like a bewildered hippopotamus, until 



372 BLIND JO AND THE NEW PEOPLE. 

fished out by the strong right arm of the amateur pho- 
tographer, who placed him effectively, and, while he 
was drying, pointed the camera at him again with 
better success. 

It struck blind Jo as an immense piece of frivolity 
that one of the new people should be strolling through 
the woods making pictures. When " 01' Mars' took 
t' trampin' " it had been to select the proper timber 
for the saw-mill or for fence rails. '' W'ite folks didn't 
walk for nuthin' " in the olden times that represented 
Jo's Paradise Lost. But he liked the new man's voice, 
and he liked the strong grip of his muscular young 
hands in his shirt collar, and he liked, best of all, the 
hearty invitation given him by the photographer to 
" come up to the big house that night and get a toddy 
to drive the wetting from his bones." It sounded like 
old times to be ordered up to the big house on so 
sociable an errand, and it felt like old times when he 
dropped his ragged straw hat on the ground by the 
front steps and seated himself in the old place to sip 
his toddy luxuriously. It warmed the very cockles of 
his heart to be there again. 

Those were new faces, up there on the old gallery 
above him. What mattered that to blind Jo ? Those 
were strange voices — that did matter. He missed the 
masterful tones of 01' Mars', and the music of Miss 
Jinny's voice was silent. (01' Mars' was at rest under 
the jessamines in the garden, but how about Miss 
Jinny ?) They were talking about the old plantation 
up there above him. There was comfort in that for 
Jo. They had not quite got the hang of the *' gin- 
slough field," and the ''Burnt Ridge," and "Hard- 



BLIND JO AND THE NEW PEOPLE. 373 

scrabble Corner " yet, but those local designations 
would come in time. These were city folks, and blind 
Jo felt his own superiority to them intensely. He 
could tell them, if they would only ask him, that it was 
a big mistake to put the oats over in Hardscrabble 
Corner, and to plow up the long field, where the coco 
pest held sway, but they didn't ask him. '' 01' Mars' " 
would have done it. " 01' Mars' sot a heap er sto' by 
his 'pinion." 

He soon found out that there was perplexity and 
confusion among the new people — confusion about 
boundary lines, and perplexity about title-deeds. There 
was discussion about lawyers, who must be called in 
to make something clearer, or else the big house and 
the yard premises would ^'revert." There was con- 
fused allusion to some '' stakes," which nobody had 
ever seen and nobody could find. 

If they had not been new people they would have 
known that the motionless creature sitting there with 
his gray head bent slightly forward, listlessly inert, 
excepting when he lifted the glass of toddy to his lips, 
was drinking in every word. Some of them were 
words that conveyed no meaning to him. " Revert " 
— what did that mean ? *' Stakes ? " Yes ; he knew 
what that meant, nobody knew better. Nobody but 
himself knew at all. 

A window seemed to have been opened in his 
memory, sending in a flood of light. But that light 
must not shine on the new people. It must illumine 
Miss Jinny's path alone. He had nothing to give the 
new people but humble thanks for the toddy, as he 
Stood up to place the empty glass on the gallery floor, 



374 BLIND JO AND THE NEW PEOPLE. 

and, picking up his ragged straw hat, he groped his 
way back over the famiUar path from the big house to 
Melindy's cabin. 

After that tumble into the water, Jo's conduct 
became so very eccentric that the behef that he had 
lost his head permanently when losing his balance 
temporarily rapidly gained currency. He discarded 
his satellite as a primary movement in the new direc- 
tion, and availing himself of the team that was going 
to town for freight one day, he presented himself in 
person before the first lawyer in Slaterville. He had 
a sLory to tell — a story which involved issues of such 
tremendous moment to Miss Jinny that nothing short 
of the lawyer's solemn oath that they were absolutely 
alone in the office unsealed his lips. 

Then he told how, sitting one evening on 
the steps of the big house long ago, with only 
"Or Mars'" and "01' Miss" above him, he had 
heard them talking sorrowfully of Mars' Ben's 
"skittish ways"; of how they "mourned" at the 
thought of the old house ever passing out of the 
family ; of how " 01' Miss " had asked if there wasn't 
some way of " slicing " the yard and the house off from 
the plantation and putting it in " Miss Jinny's " name ; 
of how he (not blind Jo then) had gone with " 01' 
Mars' " the very next day and driven some stakes in 
the woods " close back " of the garden ; of how he 
didn't like to say positive, but he sorter felt like there 
was some writing about it in the flap of 01' Miss's little 
work-table that Miss Jinny had "took " away with her ; 
of how he didn't want nothing said about it unless he 
could find them stakes, for if Mars' Ben had " give up " 



BLIND JO AND THE NEW PEOPLE. 375 

the whole place, maybe it wouldn't be nothing but 
'' pester " for Miss Jinny to stir the matter up ; of how 
this having all happened so very long ago, when Miss 
Jinny wasn't any thing but a little " skeery critter " 
that he had to hold in the saddle when he was teaching 
her how to ride, he might not be able to find the stakes, 
but he was going to try for it. 

The folks wondered why blind Jo had developed 
such a sudden indifference to the bayou and his fishing 
poles. Such conscience as Isham was possessed of 
smote him sorely for this change 'in the old man's 
habits. He haunted the woods now alone, always 
alone. If he suspected that he was watched, the most 
savage denunciations fell with withering effect upon 
his watchers. Whole days he would spend in the 
woods, groping, walking slowly, feeling his way through 
them foot by foot, almost inch by inch, coming back 
to the cabin at night, spent with exhaustion, and ready 
to eat eagerly of the crumbs that fell from Melindy's 
table with the dogs. 

He brooked no questions and volunteered no infor- 
mation. The folks grew tired of speculating about 
him. The new people at the big house forgot all 
about him. Only the lawyer in Slaterville, holding 
himself ready for " a case " if those mythical stakes 
should ever be located, speculated idly once in a while 
about the strange old darkey on the Bendemma plan- 
tation, who might have told him a truth, or might have 
made the story out of whole cloth. 

But there came a night when blind Jo did not come 
back to eat of the crumbs which fell from Melindy's 
table — such a wild, tempestuous night, when the wind 



376 BLIND JO AND THE NEW PEOPLE. 

and the lightning and the thunder and the hail con- 
spired to send terror into the simple hearts of all " the 
folks." They wondered uneasily where old Jo had 
stopped. Of course at the " nearest cabin." But the 
*' nearest cabin " knew him not. 

Out there, in the dense woods that had grown with 
Miss Jinny's growth and strengthened with her 
strength, until the feeble sapling had become the 
mighty oak, they found him the next day, with the 
sparkling sunshine resting placidly on his wet upturned 
face, and the birds singing heartlessly to his closed 
ears. Across his broad chest lay a huge limb rent 
from a tempest-torn tree. It had stilled the beating 
of his loyal heart as surely as a bullet. His long right 
arm was twined about a stake driven firmly into the 
ground and capped with iron. The sinewy fingers of 
the old man had closed about this iron cap in a death- 
grip. He had triumphed with his last breath. And 
Miss Jinny was the gainer. 

The lawyer in Slaterville had his case. The new 
people had their defeat. Miss Jinny has her home, and 
blind Jo has his grave beside 01' Mars' and 01' Miss 
under the jessamine bushes in the garden of the big 
house. 



THE END. 



'"''0,^ 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 433 837 6 



